Stay
by foolhappy
Summary: The blind Bosmer archer, Lir, doesn't make a habit of staying still. As soon as things get too real, too difficult, too close to the chest, she picks up and moves on. But when she stumbles her way into the frozen, fracturing country of Skyrim, she gets a little too close to quite a lot altogether too quickly. And, this time, when she runs, someone she left behind... follows.
1. Chapter 1

I did not relax until the cold wind at my back no longer smelled of Whiterun City.

The wagon clattered roughly along the old stone road, jostling me rudely as I leaned knotted shoulders against the sideboard and propped my feet up on the empty bench opposite. My gaze drifted slowly over the trees as we passed them. Their silhouettes cut dark slats through the hazy brightness of early evening; the indistinct tangle of light and dark forming the full extent of my vision.

I fingered the grip of my bow, letting the curve of ashwood rest in my lap. So far it had been a quiet journey. No ambushes. No armies. No dragons. My lips twitched as I considered how different this cart-ride was from my last. My hands had been bound, then, for one. This was the same road — the mountain pass through the Jeralls — but I was heading in the opposite direction. And instead of playing the mistaken addition to a mass execution, I was intentionally preparing for potential suicide.

Delphine's desperate plan still echoed in my ears.

 _Infiltrate the Thalmor Embassy._

I whistled lowly, and smiled when the birds flittering in the pines overhead twittered a reply.

This was a new beginning, I told myself; the first strong step of the Dragonborn. My hand unconsciously tightened around my bow at the thought, as though I'd heard an enemy in the distance.

 _Dragonborn_. For months I'd avoided the title. Shrugged it off, buried it; told no one, and heard it pass only a handful of lips. Yes, I had felt dragons die. I had slain them with the raw power of my voice; devoured their very souls. I had run my fingers over their ancient carvings and felt words of power form on my tongue, the natures of which men, mer, and beastfolk could not so easily fathom. But that didn't make me a hero. I was just Lir, the Valenwood runaway, more savage than sentient. Lir, Jorrvaskr's newest whelp. Lir, the coward.

I _was_.

 _Now_ I was the Dragonborn.

None of the rest mattered anymore.

My fingers found the spine of the book nestled reverently in my pack, the leather of its binding gone soft with age and use. I knew the rough-cut pages and unstamped cover marked it a crude and unremarkable thing, but the value I placed upon it was not in the leather, or the parchment, or even the words within, for I could not read them. No, it was enough to know that the book had been _his_. The father I _would_ I'd had. The father I'd lost, the father I'd wept for losing. Without him, I was not Lir. I was not really a Companion. He had marked me one; called me worthy. Worthy of the honor and glory of Jorrvaskr.

But when the honor and the glory had gone, so had I.

The air brushed against my cheeks, and ruffled my shorn-short hair like a patriarch's hand. I moved until I lay on the cart's floor, head propped on my pack, where the haunting breeze of our movement could not reach me.

The cart horse whinnied lightly, and I heard the jingle of the leather harness as the mare tossed her head. The driver, Bjorlam, clucked at her soothingly. There was a moment of pregnant quiet from him, and a self-conscious instinct prickled my scalp.

"Long ride to Riften," Bjorlam remarked in his unruffled way, voice dipping in volume as he turned his face back forward. I realized belatedly he had glanced back at me; his sole and somber passenger. "Why not say something?"

I breathed deeply the musk of horse, the dirty-mint of pine, and the snap of mountain chill. _A new start,_ I smiled; every end of me alive with the freedom of it, as though I were a horse, myself- unsaddled, unbridled and ready to sprint across the open tundra.

"What do you want me to say?" I laughed, leaning my head back toward the Nord; politely aiming my eyes toward him despite their uselessness. My brother had told me, before I'd put the Rooted City behind me, that my eyes had gone "full moon" white as the years had passed. Called them eerie to see. My parents had discouraged my meeting people's gazes, for fear of making anyone uncomfortable. But in Cyrodiil- and now Skyrim, as well- I'd learned that most people preferred you look them in the eye, to better see _your_ face even if the sentiment wasn't exactly returned.

"Well," Bjorlam said thoughtfully, the leather reins flicking gently in his hands like a punctuation, "you're a Companion, aren't you? You've gotta have stories."

My chest depressed as he spoke, breath gusting from me like I'd been kicked.

I could see in my mind's eye what was left of the Circle; gathered, grieving, in the Underforge. I could see them – Aela, Farkas, Vilkas – expecting me to join them in mourning around the great stone chalice that stood in center of the secret chamber. When Eorlund told me they were waiting, I had nodded as if it were my intention to seek them out. But I had slipped like a thief into Jorrvaskr, instead. I'd pulled my pack over my shoulder, lingered only long enough to retrieve the book from Kodlak's drawer- a last, best memorial- and left.

By now they must have realized I was gone.

"Sure," I said, my voice too empty to really break the pause I'd taken. "Sure," I said again, with more strength. Abruptly, I grinned; the motion pulling on the scar that split my right cheek.

A memory whispered to me in the voice of a Valenwood shaman: _Where one tail ends, yet waits an open mouth._ Back then I had believed the maxim was a warning, reminding me to always be on guard for danger. Now, it seemed more like a doorway; a reminder that an end was also a beginning, and an invitation to accept that life was about change. Like the change from smith, to vagrant, to sailor, to criminal, to warrior— to, perhaps, hero.

"Sure, Bjorlam," I said stretching, and settled more comfortably on the rattling cart floor. "I'll tell you a story."


	2. Chapter 2

_"I was given the name Illiraën, and passed my childhood in Valenwood. From there, I wandered Tamriel until I, ah, found myself in Skyrim. When I came to Whiterun, it was in search of adventure."_

* * *

The sprawling, spidery Gildergreen tree at the heart of the square gave me pause. A preacher wailed off to the side, and the sound, though harsh, dipped and bounded and bent around the great tree in a way I could almost picture it. Small as it was, by Valenwood standards, it reminded me of Falinesti's city tree; branches splaying wide as though welcoming a burden.

 _Or, perhaps,_ I thought in melancholy, turning to follow the curve of the path and leaving the click of bare, dry branches behind me, _it's overburdened already._

I took my time approaching Jorrvaskr, feeling for every rough-hewn, ages-worn step. My brow furrowed and my eyelids closed as I focused on finding my way. Whiterun was well-organized, for a flat city, but I was a stranger, still, and possessed no adept familiarity with its numerous streets. Especially not this one, which I'd never had cause to walk before. I paused, exhaling, then breathing deeply. My senses strained for some sign of the famous mead hall. A muddled, almost immortal medley trickled on the wind.

 _There_ , it was. The cart driver outside the city must have been right when he called this the oldest part of the city. The ancient wood had settled solid, and almost fully lost its natural scent under so many coats of staining and paint. It had absorbed the smells of the surrounding land, and then the city that had slowly bloomed around it.

For some moments I stood in awe, just breathing in the wisping smell of the ages.

When I reached the threshold, I ran a hand over the carved paneling of the door; softened with age, but no less strong and sturdy for the wearing of time. This building had weathered eras untold. Hesitantly, I placed a hand upon its wrought iron handle. The door swung open with almost no resistance, despite its thick, heavy form. Immediately, the sound of a commotion within crashed against my ears. I tensed, my eyes snapping open in a futile instinct to search.

"Are those two at it again?" Footsteps hurried from one end of a single, long room to the other.

I closed the door behind me. I could smell fire and food. There was the tang of harder metals, too, but faint— weapons on display? Sweat and Man, over a light whiff of lye. Dishes clattered as they were abandoned in favor of this new entertainment.

"You dare challenge a Dunmer?" Crowed a cocky male voice.

"I'll enjoy killing you!" Came the opponent's retort. A woman; a Nord- her voice all edges, as if even that were made of steel.

The hard _whump_ of flesh on flesh made me tense. A fistfight. I toed my way to an edge of the sort of railed walkway that lined the hall. I winced as the deep thumps of hard, intentional, flurried hits reached me.

"What is happening?" I asked of the air around me, distressed by so many unknowns and barely able to find my voice. This was Jorrvaskr, wasn't it? The sounds of boasting, grunting from the two fighters and the heckling of surrounding onlookers curled around a high ceiling and I tilted my ear up to analyze it. Like a boat, inverted and made a roof. Such an ancient, innovative design.

 _This is definitely Jorrvaskr,_ I resolved, wincing as the Dunmer choked, as from a blow to his gut or neck.

"Come on, Njada, he's giving you an opening!"

"Hit her!"

My blood pumped at the feeling of fighting, and I relaxed into what was, to all appearances, commonplace. I felt the combatants' footwork in the boards beneath my boots, and put my hands on the railing so as to lean into the sound of it and map their movements in my mind.

Both were armored lightly, but the Dunmer was considerably faster than his Nordic opponent. He hit quick, close, and in a flurry, then retreated before he could get pinned down by a counterattack. His feet barely brushed against the ground when he moved, only pressing down when he was taking a blow. There was never the slightest staggering _thud_ to indicate he'd lost balance, even when Njada hit home.

But the woman was stronger. Her strikes were harder, more unforgiving, _louder_. She moved solid and deliberate, and did not give an inch when the Dunmer pressed forward and angled on his toes. I imagined her body barely bowed when the Dunmer hit home, if it bowed at all.

I kept expecting the brawl to end after a particularly pained cry or grunt, but the contenders were tough, thick-skinned; their stamina inexhaustible. It must have gone on for a quarter candlemark before I felt the thump of knees and hands hit the wood floor, and the Dunmer's ashen croak sounded: "I yield, I yield."

The fine hairs of my arms pricked as I heard one, two, _three_ more closed fists hit bare flesh. My teeth ground and my blood rushed in my ears at the self-important gait of the Nord as she swaggered away from the downed body. Were manners so different in Skyrim that it was acceptable to beat a man when he had yielded? Judging by the sudden silence of the other spectators, I gathered that it was not.

A man with a voice like a cavern shaft echo, also a Nord, stopped Njada to ask about a shield grip.

"You're probably gripping it wrong." She responded sharply, rudely, and my eyebrows came down. Unnecessary brutality was apparently her trademark- first at fight's end and now with simple conversation. I decided I did not like her, and hoped she was not an example of how all the Companions behaved. If so, perhaps I ought to turn around now and leave the way I'd come, and not waste my time. I chewed a lip, then decided to err on the side of caution, and investigate Jorrvaskr further.

I took the couple steps down from the walkway and swung my arms casually at my sides— to disguise the fact that I was brushing my fingertips on things I passed to steer through the hall, and to alert me before I ran into something. In this utterly new place, with its faded smells and dampened sounds, my awareness was limited. And that made me nervous.

A brush of scratched leather on my right.

"Pardon me," I apologized immediately, eyes downcast, as I put space between the body I'd failed to notice. Their breath hit me, from somewhere just higher than my nose, and I reeled. How had I failed to notice the stench of brew that clung to this— I hesitated, but could smell nothing but the reek of mead. The wood beneath me creaked, the sound sliding past the figure and illustrating a mere silhouette. My apology fell awkwardly flat as I fretted blindly; the polite addition of "sir" or "madame" eluding me.

The body turned, belatedly acknowledging my touch and my words.

"Oh, excuse me," a male voice slurred and I could have slumped in relief at being enlightened- and at so kind a return. After hearing how Njada spoke to her fellows, I had no reason to expect civility to a stranger.

"Wait." I could imagine eyebrows furrowing over a drink-blotched face. "I haven't seen you before... Have I?" I opened my mouth to reply, but he beat me to it. I sensed a hand wave in the air between us apologetically, and heard the hair of his head rustle as he shook it slightly. "I'm sorry if I've forgotten."

I chuckled under my breath. If the man didn't know his own memories, a proper introduction would only be wasted breath.

"Who's in charge around here?" I asked, instead, listening to the stranger move and breathe.

His stance was curiously refined, in a distant way— his foot pressed evenly into the wood when he shifted his weight, despite his apparent drunkenness. Such sure bearing was not a trait I'd noted in my travels and interactions with laypeople. My anxiety was slowly shifting into curiosity.

"In charge of what?" His voice was loud, as brew-drinkers voices often were; but even slurring, his consonants were pronounced. My eyebrows came down, and I forgot to focus my clouded eyes on him as I learned his details. "I'm in charge of me, and you're in charge of you."

My lips pulled into a genuine smile, and I felt my eyelids press up in my eyes. Freedom. The word rang in my mind beautifully; I wanted nothing more.

"If you're looking to join up," he continued, and for a moment I wondered if my eagerness had split across my face, but there was no smile, no mockery in his tone as he jerked a hand to my left; "Kodlak's the one to be talking to."

"Thank you," I returned, and meant it.

"Yeah, yeah," he waved me off with a mutter, and my mouth screwed sideways to hold in a laugh. A curious man, I decided, and left him to his meal.

Kodlak. My mind stirred, remembering the name from the night at the farm when I'd met the Huntress and her fellows fighting a giant. Her hard, Nord voice had softened when she'd spoken of him- and not the lily softness of affection, but the way that ore goes lax in the smelter; a softness forged from respect. None of the voices in the present company called that name, or carried the weight of a man who could read souls out of eyes.

Turning left, as the drunk man had gestured, I found a bannister and followed it, giving up pretenses as the rest of the Companions ignored me after a first glance. I caught the faint whiff of ancient hide and that scent hair could get when it went unwashed in the woods, and recognized the Huntress from the farm. I smiled, and wondered if she'd noticed me, wherever she stood, and remembered me.

A scuff of my boot came back hollow and scarce. Stairs. I decided to take them, and lifted my head when the door at the bottom opened and closed.

"Oh, I'm just a servant, dear," a voice, watery with age, explained kindly and I flushed, realizing how imploring my expression must have been to make her say such. "You'll want to talk to one of the Companions, I'm sure."

"Kodlak Whitemane?" I inquired, reaching a hand as if to catch her sleeve when her thin form moved to pass me on the wide stairs.

"Through the door, at the end of the hall," she replied, a smile clear and present in her voice. I smiled, too, at her lack of hesitation; at her not taking a moment to look me over and measure my worth. It was encouraging to think that, perhaps, I really did look the part of a Companion hopeful and not just a, a— what did the Nords call it?— a milkdrinker.

These doors, too, were smoothed from the press of many hands. My heart mourned for the tree killed to make such idle furnishing. Who knew what stories the wood, if it had lived, might have told of all the heroes that had passed its eaves? I pressed through, burying the thought. Nords were, after all, so very fond of telling their own stories.

I stood, now, in a stone hall under the building, limned in the tang of lye— thanks to the elderly servantwoman, I now knew. Books, fabric, unstained wood, iron, weapons and armor and the people who owned them.

I had to remember to breathe slowly, deeply, as instinct to learn my surroundings pulled air fast through my flared nostrils. Living quarters, I pegged the place; by the smell of the colored stain alone. Lye was used on doors, and straw, and the tanned, sewn furs of beds.

The lack of movement here lent my label more credit. Why would warriors walk their bedrooms when daylight beamed and there were things to be done?

I sidestepped a long rug, and let the soft tap of my boots on stone guide me down the hall. The sound rolled instead of bounced, and I cocked my ear toward the ceiling in surprise, realizing it was curiously curved like the boat-roof up the stairs.

I passed a table, laden with the smell of food, and wondered unhappily whether the old servantwoman did all the Companion's cooking, too. Did the Nords disrespect their elders so? Was that another mark I needed to tally against them in my mind?

Voices, stunted, reached my ears and brushed away my thought. Surprised by how muffled the conversation resounded, I put a hand on the wall to feel its texture and moved cautiously toward the speakers. The structure felt like ordinary stone, but from what I could tell, it should have sent the voices echoing all throughout the hallway. Yet, it did not.

"— the call of the blood," I distinguished, finally, when stone gave way to a thick wooden doorway, as to a place of honored privacy. I smelled trophies of many kinds— flesh, paper, wood, leather, steel. Kodlak Whitemane's study, perhaps?

I stood aside, not knowing where a candle lay to guess its shadows and hide in them.

"We all do." My long ears snapped forward like a Khajiit, and my eyes widened. "It is our burden to bear." The aged voice had the rocks of years to move through, but it did so with strength. It was a waterfall; full of inherent majesty, each syllable pronouncing its authority.

 _Kodlak_ , I knew, and was struck with another wave of anxiety. I stood straighter and surer, to look— and feel— less like an interloper and more like a guest. I was supposed to be here, I reminded myself. I _needed_ to be here.

Chairs creaked, heavy armor scraped, and the breath of voices faded. The conversation had ended. I stepped forward.

"A stranger comes to our halls," Kodlak noted, his voice hitting me straight. He was looking at me. I willed my beating heart to still. I was not a deer cornered in the dark; I was Lir, and I was no prey. A shiver across my shoulders made my jaw clench. I sensed the other man who had been speaking was eying me, as well. I lifted my chin a fraction, just enough that dim light registered in my blackened vision; the light from hanging candles showcasing my white-dead eyes. This was not a time to duck; to hide my handicap. If they did not know at the first, it would be a terrible deception. And warriors in honor— Shield-Siblings— did not deceive each other.

"I would like to join the Companions," I announced myself.

"Would you now?" There was amusement in his baritone and my teeth creaked as they ground together. Was he holding me in derision? Was it my lack of preamble? I stood stock still, not allowing myself to fidget- as a wolf staring down a nocked arrow.

"Come, let's have a look at you." A moment stretched and stretched until I could feel the space between my heartbeat as I waited for the worst. My eyes I fixed on something— Kodlak's voice, so probably his mouth. Gods, I hoped it was somewhere near his eyes.

I prayed. Oh, Y'ffre, I prayed. _Let him see something in me. Let my years of struggling not be for naught. Let this honored Man scrub out the ridicule of Mer. Let me be worthy. Let me be worth_ something- _anything._

The suspension broke with a simple thoughtful murmur:

"Yes, perhaps…"

I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. A 'perhaps' was all I needed.

"A certain strength of spirit."

I could have let off light.

"Master," the other man cut in, and I twitched to face him, angling my ears and pressing my feet to the floor to sense his movements if they came. I had forgotten he was there. "You aren't really considering accepting _her_?"

And like that, I could feel myself glaring blindly; the expression useless with dead eyes, I knew- not to mention utterly rude before a stranger, and an elder who had just told me the spirit behind those eyes was strong, despite their blindness. I bit down on my tongue hard to hold my scathing retort behind my lips, and forced my brows to slacken.

 _You expected this,_ I reminded myself. _Your family weighed you, measured you; wrongly found you lacking. Others will ever do the same._

"I am nobody's master, Vilkas." I straightened at the iron in Kodlak's voice. "And last I checked, there were a few empty beds in Jorrvaskr for those with a fire burning in their hearts."

"Apologies," Vilkas offered. I did not move but for the thinning of my lips. He was not speaking to me. He wasn't even _looking_ at me. His only "sorrow" was for being scolded. There was no real remorse for the words or the cruel sting they'd caused. "It's just that— I've never even _heard_ of this outsider."

My eyebrows raised mockingly at his presumption – for the Man hadn't even asked me my name! –, but I yet held my tongue. When I'd lodged an arrow so deeply in a giant's throat that I could not pull it out, a shot made from fifty paces, at night, against a westerly wind, _blind_ — there had been no question of name or fame, then. The Huntress had thought me worth her time to welcome. I didn't need to impress this _milkdrinker_ ; but even so... I wished for a moonless night and a deep Valenwood glade, and this _Vilkas_ with a shield and blade, but blind as me. See how he felt _then_. See if his precious renown meant anything with an anaconda silent between his feet, or a panther in the boughs above his head with its claws outstretched.

"Sometimes the famous come to us," Kodlak agreed with patience unending. "Sometimes men and women come to us to seek their fame. It makes no difference. What matters," he looked at me and I felt pinned by his gaze, like a butterfly against velvet, "is the strength of their heart."

"And their arm," Vilkas sniffed, and I felt myself tense reflexively at the feel of his underwhelmed glance down my own arm. Thin, it was, but for a moment, I fantasized I could feel it against his brow, forcing the tender back of his skull hard into the wall behind. The moment passed.

"Yes, indeed." Kodlak chuckled indulgently, as to a child.

"How are you in battle?" He asked of me, and there was no trace of prejudgment in his tone. No amount of skepticism, nor a whit of mockery.

For a pregnant moment, I hesitated. I wanted to boast, I wanted to stamp a verbal foot over Vilkas' lack of regard and twist it into nothing. I wanted to be bold, assured. But I felt my eyes sliding in their sockets, nothing to hold onto. My heart thudded with the embarrassment of how I must look— a skinny, if roughened, little Bosmer in glinting new armor, never before worn as she endeavored to impress; her hair sticking out at all angles, cut by a dagger in her own uncertain hand; full moon eyes drifting blindly, the brightest part of her.

Kodlak's words echoed as if he spoke them again: _A certain strength of spirit._

My pulse steadied and I swallowed my vanity and my despair. I had kept myself sustained, alive, safe, defended, all these years in the dark. But there was no denying my youth, and my inexperience.

"I have much to learn," I admitted finally, my shoulders dipping to weather a dismissal. But the emotion of the room did not cool or still. If anything, it lightened.

"That's the spirit!" I could hear the smile and approval in the old man's voice, and my heart soared— my scarred lips parted in a silent, shocked relief. Was I a Companion now? Is that what this— "Vilkas will get started on that."

My neck muscles tensed as I worked not to whip my head toward the distasteful boy-man. He had not moved so long as he had been sitting there but to lean his weight forward, metal bracers clacking against plate-skirted thighs, as though taxed to weariness by my presence.

"Vilkas," Kodlak ordered, and the younger man sat up again in his chair; the precise sound of it curling my lip as I was willing to bet he _still_ refused to acknowledge me. "Take her out to the yard and see what she can do."

"Aye," the word was dragged from him, little better than a groan of displeasure, and I irritably wondered if he had petulantly rolled his eyes, too. My teeth ground at the perpetual rudeness of this 'Vilkas.' His voice sounded adult to me, and yet he threw his words around like a bullying lad whose stones had yet to drop.

He stood, armor creaking, and set off at a jog— nearly knocking into me. I bristled and followed, the noise of his going illuminating the long hall for me better, in my way.

He did not speak at all. No greeting, no nothing. Up the stairs, past the great table and center hearth— I nearly lost him in the voices and for not realizing there was another door opposite the one I had come in at the first. He did not wait for me. Did not even pause to see if I _was_ following.

Outside, I tightened my bracers and the belts across my waist, all irritation. His steps led down a set of stairs, past a couple more wooden benches and tables, conversing people, another few stairs, and onto a sort of courtyard. The ground beneath me was cobbled stone, worn down and filled with dirt until the surface was near smooth. I smelled straw and canvas— practicing dummies?— and the hot smoke of burning coal. The wind was stronger, here, and I could smell open land and distant trees. We were near the city wall.

"The old man said to have a look at you," Vilkas said slowly, and I seethed.

Did he take me for a simpleton? Was it because I was a Mer? Blind? Smaller, and younger (by his flagrantly mortal reckoning)? His voice was somewhere like two hands above my own.

"So, let's do this."

He expected me to fail. I felt it keenly in his dismissive, obligated tone. My features settled like a rockslide at the end of its run.

"Just take a few swings at me so I can see your form." He elaborated, still with that infuriatingly didactic tone. The ring of sword out of sheath met my ears, and the dim thunder of a shield settling over an arm. "Don't worry," he mocked, sneering once more at my perceived weakness. "I can take it."

I focused on him utterly, determined not to be outdone. The scrape of his metal boots through dirt, on stone; the creak of his armor as he gestured, moved, leaned; the smell of the metal, and the man underneath; the faint tap of his weight, translated by the packed earth beneath our feet- when he moved, I knew it, and mirrored him. I learned his pattern. Step forward, step right, quarter circle, step back, step left, lift shield.

I caught a whiff of hair amid the musk of male and smiled. So. He had not donned a helmet.

"Don't just stand there," Vilkas spat, and I could taste his temper in the air as he went to circle and I countered. "Hit me!"

I did not respond to his taunt, but I did raise my hands; fingers closed into fists. Four years I had walked with the Suthay Khajiit of Elsweyr, when my own people had written me off after losing my sight. Of course, the nomads had no concept of blindness— even in the blackest of nights, they could walk with confidence. But fighting in close quarters, empty handed... They knew very much of that.

I waited for his patience to wear out. Waited for his pronouncement of my weakness to come.

His shield tucked in, his blade came up. I danced left, sword coming down at my right, and my arm flashed up and out, connecting solidly with the delicate flesh of his ear.

Murmuring voices sounded, and I realized we had an audience. I did not turn, did not allow the distraction as I kept on my toes as Vilkas's grunt gave way to resuming his stance.

"She just might make it," someone said. My heart galloped and my smile showed teeth.

I did not need him to strike again, now that he was aware that _I_ was aware. I feinted right, and heard his elbow rise to shove me back. The fool's counter came too slowly. I leaped up, forward, tugged his shield down fast with one hand, and struck between pauldron and chestplate, ramming the tender muscle connecting torso and shoulder.

He grunted from pain, surprised and unwillingly impressed, and I did not allow him the chance to recover. Admittedly, he was more agile than most Nords; turning with me as I moved left in an attempt to flank. But the warrior, too bulky, was not fast enough. I swept my foot out suddenly, hooking his leg and pulling it from under him- just enough to teeter his center a fraction. I struck his sword arm away, hard, the blade clanging against the inside of his shield- cleanly halting his attempted bash at me when I'd broken through his defense.

Jump back, sidestep, jab, feint, _strike_ —!

My knuckles split on banded iron- his shield. I hissed at the pain and retreated a span. The fool- not entirely a fool, it seemed- had been paying attention. Had taken a few hits patiently to learn me, in turn. I shook my hand before me, scowling. My knuckles were bleeding, I was sure of it.

In a breath, Vilkas filled the space I'd abandoned, putting me on the retreat. "Is that the best you've got?", he crowed.

 _Oh_ , I _hated_ him.

I rained on the shield with my open palms, unexpectedly forcefully as my weight was launched into the assault. He staggered, grunting, and I ducked in. My grin was feral as I used our size difference to my advantage. I shouldered his shield away in the split second he needed to recover, to straighten— knocked his sword away with a braced wrist, and shoved an elbow into his armored gut, just enough to bend him, expose his—!

My fist slammed into his chin, reeling his head back and shoving his jaw against his skull with an audible _clack_ of teeth.

I sprang back out of range, grinning savagely. Such a hit would have sent anyone sprawling, this _Vilkas_ was no–

"Pretty good arm you have there," he conceded grudgingly, his stance like an iron wall once more. With a sharp, stunned prickle, I realized he had hardly recoiled. My eyebrows were high as I mirrored him. He could take a hit, I gave the bastard that.

But he would hit the ground. Hard. My teeth bared with resolve.

I reacted. Smell and sound and feeling ran together as every nerve went needle-sharp with want to bring Vilkas down. My feet slid and raised and rolled. My torso curved and bent; I spun and whirled. My fists were iron as I forced them against Vilkas's shield, his armor, again, again— again! When he gave an inch, I took a span. After some minutes, he was breathing heavily, his ears probably ringing from all I'd struck them, and I could smell blood, somewhere. Perhaps a split lip? Or just my own knuckles, which were raw, chapped, and stinging. He was still on his feet. Solid as an oak. I raged silently, my breath gusting and my every joint buzzing with exertion.

We considered each other for a tense moment. I flexed my fingers, gritting my teeth as they cramped.

"That's enough." Vilkas breathed finally, and I heard him straighten, his sword return to its sheath, and the shield dangle in his grip. I, too, relaxed, and felt my spine crack once, twice, on the way. I suppressed a wince. It had been a long time since I'd faced an opponent so much stronger than myself. _Eight_ , I was not even used to such exertion- even wandering for as long as I had, and working for the past fortnight at Adrienne's forge.

I truly did have much to learn. Y'ffre willing, I would learn it here, in Jorrvaskr's halls.

"You just might make it." Vilkas muttered begrudgingly. A smile tugged on my mouth, curling my lips at the hard-won, hidden success- "But you're still a whelp to us, new blood. So you do what we tell you."

My smile dropped as though he'd slapped me. I wanted to spit at him; pull out my dagger and hold it to his throat. But I was wearier than I wanted him to know, and my hand would surely shake. So I ground my teeth and said nothing, indulging him in his arrogance as everyone else here seemed to do.

"Here's my sword." He thrust it at me before I'd had a chance to hear, smell, feel what was happening. I jerked to catch it as he let it go, dropping its generous weight into my smaller- and spent- arms carelessly.

"Take it up to Eorland to get it sharpened. And be careful." He sneered. "It's probably worth more than you are."

His footsteps led away without another word, thought, or backward glance. The sword was heavy in my tired arms, and they trembled faintly. My fingers, though, itched to swing the oh-so-valuable steel at his self-important back.

But that was a child's thinking. And what would that win me?

I breathed in the cold-sharp wind of Whiterun's plains, and breathed out my wrath. Turning my head til my nose caught the scent of a nearby smithy, I walked away; my weary knees only wobbling a little.


	3. Chapter 3

_"For my first bit of work, the Companions sent me to Riverwood to knock some sense into a troublemaker there. When I got back, and finally paid the jarl a visit— well, a lot happened at once."_

* * *

This time, I wrapped my hands in leather strips before walking into the fight. Sparring with Vilkas that first day had taught me the irritation of cut, bruised knuckles and, consequently, the value of preparation. And I wanted to be prepared for this fight.

Of all the people to put in front of me angry— I had to give it to the gods for their humor— Sven had to be one of the worst. He knew I had gone straight to the front page of the Valerius' good books when I'd restored their claw ornament to them, as I'd intended. He knew I had used that position to, ah, _advise_ Camilla in her romantic indecision. And of course he knew I would recommend my good, gracious brother elf over a pompous, domineering Nord.

"You're nothing but trouble," His voice hacked through the air the moment the inn door closed behind me. I followed the reverberation the door had made to stand before his chair. I still could not fathom how his mother had described him as a "meadow lark." Eighteen hands worth of an aggressive work-shirker? Sounded more along the lines of a stunted troll than a song bird.

"I've been sent to resolve a dispute," I told him firmly, my hands flexing in their binds.

He scoffed. I tensed, knowing it was because of my size, my eyes.

"You can't scare _me_ into submission." He spat. "Let's go!" He stood quickly, ready for this, so ready for this excuse to pound me into the floor. I struck first, faster than him.

He was unarmored, with only a tunic separating my fist from his body. Still, it was a harder hit than I expected on a bard. Perhaps he worked more at the mill than I'd given him credit for.

His blows were slow, his movements untrained. It was nothing like the calculation of Vilkas, or the ferocity of bandits, or the dedication of Cyrodiilic guardsmen. But, still, he was a Nord.

The first blow he landed nearly winded me. I sucked in air in a gasp and twisted out of his reach. I could taste his anger, and feel his heartbeat thumping into the air. I knew how far away was acceptable without being considered a forfeit.

I hit his chin much; his mouth, even more. When he spat curses and insults, defaming my people, it was all I could do not to punt him right in the manhood and end it then.

Still, he lasted longer than I'd anticipated. Perhaps bards were trained to be sturdy, with their reputation as wanderers. I was masking my wheezes beneath slow, long, quiet draws of breath when he pulled himself up to straighten.

"You're tougher than you look," he conceded, surprising me. That was more than Vilkas had said, and this young man had far more reason to hate me than he. "You beat me fair and square."

I couldn't resist. I held out my hand, expression open, and hoped he would take it. He did and we shook.

"You know what you have to do," I said, just to be sure.

"Yeah, yeah. You won't be hearing about any more trouble from me." He replied, repentant; albeit with a reasonable hint of spite for his wounded pride. A girl, three hands shorter and seven stone lighter and _blind_ , had beaten him. As I closed the Sleeping Giant Inn door behind me, I grinned; all things considered, Sven had taken it rather well.

My satisfaction quickly wavered as I stepped out onto the street. The quiet bothered me, and I couldn't think why. I could hear the mill working, Gerdur or Hod running one last trunk or two before sunset. I could hear Alvor hammering steadily on a length of steel— _Alvor_.

It hit me. Where were the guards? I walked down the street, into Riverwood instead of away, listening and smelling. There were no torches. No fine tang of hold-issued cuirass. Mine were the only bootfalls, and the only other noise the scampering of Stump down the road after a little boy.

I felt my scar pull over my left eye as my brows came down. The night I had walked through Whiterun's gates, the guard had nearly turned me away because of the "dragons about." He knew of them. They had been sighted by Whiterun, clearly. The jarl must have known. I had left it at that.

Yet he had sent no security to this village, under his protection.

Jaw tensed so hard my teeth protested, I turned into the afternoon sun, my stride eating up the road beneath me.

 _Nobility_ , I all but swore. A slaughterfish hissed at me from the river, and I sent an arrow through its head, nailing its offending maw shut. In my ire, I left it to struggle, swim, and painfully die.

 _This will not do,_ I fumed, and upped my pace. I took the fork to Whiterun at a jog. _Not if I— a Companion, now— have anything to say about it._

* * *

It was night when I pushed open the doors to Dragonsreach. I had not stopped, not the whole way from Riverwood. Sweat reeked from my armor, the leather probably stained with it. My ears rang as I memorized what I could hear of the layout, stalking unceremoniously across the foyer rug and up the stairs. The ceiling was high enough that my angered bootfalls came back to me as whispers. It sounded grand, this place. And the smoke from a roaring, center hearth pulled the smell of years from the floor. I brushed past the details of gilding or cutlery, muscling down any impress.

A sword unsheathed ahead of me, and my ears perked at the sound but I did not slow.

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" A voice like coal sounded, and I turned. The sound of her blade flashing in front of me made me halt. "Jarl Balgruuf is not receiving visitors."

My ire simmered dangerously. "Riverwood is in danger. I need to speak to the jarl." The words came through my teeth, as a tiger baring its fangs at a challenger to its prey.

"As housecarl," the dunmer woman's scent did not change, and her blade turned in her hand consideringly but did not lower: "It is my duty to protect the jarl from potential threats. You may give your message to me."

Til this point, I had kept my blind eyes turned sightlessly toward the warmth of the fire. Now, I rounded them on her, my lips pulling over my teeth in a sour approximation of a smile.

"I was told to deliver my message directly to the jarl," I countered, my teeth clicking together like icicles and my tone breathed between them just as cold. I had trusted the message to get to him through another before, and it had not. I would not make the same mistake again.

The housecarl considered me and I felt her feet move. Immediately, my weight dipped and I brought my hands up fractionally; prepared for if she chose to become hostile. My eyebrows quirked at her over my unseeing eyes, and my close-lipped smile pursed sardonically.

"I'm starting to think…" the woman began threateningly, and my one hand drifted above me, the other behind; ready to snap at an arrow and my bow if her sword so much as twitched in her grip.

A voice drifted from the rise ahead: "It's all right, Irileth. I want to hear what she has to say."

The dunmer's sword snicked as it returned to its sheath, and I returned to the stairs. I could still feel the bodyguard's eyes on me as I went, and for an immature moment I wanted to stick my tongue out at her, or gesture a Bosmeri hand curse. But the smell of fine fur stitched to fine linen on a man bathed with fine salts reminded me of my original intent. The jarl and I had some _talking_ to do.

"What's this about Riverwood being in danger?" He asked, and his voice was in earnest. I could not help cocking my head to the side a little to hear his subtle shifts in movement better, to analyze him better. Certainly he had known already.

"A dragon attacked Helgen. Alvor is afraid Riverwood is next." Perhaps I _should_ have come to him days ago, as Alvor had asked me to.

"Alvor?" The jarl repeated, and I heard his weight move on his throne from one side to the other; a thoughtful tick. "The blacksmith, isn't he? Good, reliable fellow. Not prone to flights of fancy."

My lips pursed as I considered Balgruuf in my way. He knew a man of his hold by name, even one from a minuscule village. He was not proving to be the greedy, uncultured lout I had anticipated on the run here.

"And you're sure Helgen was hit… by a _dragon_." He pressed, disbelieving. "This wasn't just some Stormcloak raid gone wrong?"

Shifting my weight to one foot, I lifted the other to rest on the step above. Clumsy as I knew these "Stormcloaks" to be, having gotten themselves ambushed at the Cyrodiil border— and me in their wake, curse them— I cocked a brow to think anyone might mistake any raid of theirs with the devastation that was now Helgen. Arms crossed, I endeavored not to snap at this esteemed man.

"I was there." I said, and I could hear the roars, the screams, the ruin like echoes in the high hall. My shoulders trembled, for a moment, at the memory of the choking smoke and panicked running.

"I—" I hesitated. How could I explain such a consuming experience to a seeing person? I couldn't. "—saw the dragon attack Helgen."

"By Ysmir, Irileth was right!"

The exclamation stunned me and I blinked, flinching slightly. The jarl began discussing with someone at his left. I inhaled. An Imperial. Still, I was moved. He had been skeptical, but all it had taken was my word, and he believed?

"The jarl of Falkreath will view that as a provocation," the Imperial was rattling; disapproving the move to send guards to Riverwood. I tensed, and readied my tongue to step in and plead the kind village's case to this steward so concerned with his technicalities and diplomacies. "We should not—"

" _Enough!_ " Balgruuf roared, cutting him off, and I could taste his irritation, his determination. "I will not stand idly by while a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people!"

Silently, I sent an apology to the gods for my rash judgment of this jarl. This good man so encumbered by politics that he had not been given room enough to breathe, let alone properly lend an ear to the threat of a dragon on the loose.

The steward excused himself, the housecarl made her obeisant exit to select the guards for Riverwood. My work done, I turned to take my own leave back down the steps, and return to my blessedly waiting bed in Jorrvaskr.

"Well done," Balgruuf said, and it was like a hand of kinship on my shoulder, turning me back around. "You sought me out on your own initiative. You have done Whiterun a service."

His gratitude was unexpected, his commendation a wonder.

"I won't forget it." He promised. "Here, take this, as a token of my esteem."

A guard from the corner reached me, a set of Imperial armor moving from his hands to mine. I moved my fingers over the leather. It was well cut, and carefully studded with iron. My eyes came up, and I set them on Balgruuf as steadily as I could manage. It was not the gift that moved me, but the sentiment behind it. He was grateful. Enough that my Mer to his Nord was irrelevant.

From my memory, I dragged the Bosmeri customary bow of a sworn servant to a chieftain. It had been years, and the stairs nearly tripped me up, but the doing was more for me than the jarl, anyway.

"There is something else you could do for me," the jarl said suddenly, absently, as though still thinking it over within. I raised my eyebrows to express my attention was had, and straightened. "Suitable for someone of your particular talents… perhaps."

"Come," he was here again, a decision made, "let us seek out Farengar, my court wizard. He could use your help on a dragon project of his."

Balgruuf stood, and led the way at a leisurely pace. I packed my new armor into my bag as I followed. When I slung it over my shoulder, I nearly whacked a young boy who'd chosen that moment to get up from his seat near me.

"Another wanderer here to lick my father's boots," he drawled, walking on by with an air of dismissal. "Good job."

My eyebrows shot nearly to my hairline. I wished I _had_ hit the child. The decorum of these Whiterun Nords— save their jarl— was not proving impressive, not by any stretch of the imagination. First Vilkas, now this boy! I turned to Jarl Balgruuf, to implore his reprimand on that, his own, child— but he had already moved into an adjoining room, outpacing me, and was in conversation. I trotted to catch up, leaving the infernal boy to his arrogance with a quick prayer to the gods that he did not turn out like Vilkas.

"— find her useful." Balgruuf was saying. My steps revealed a wooden support beam before me, so I came around and rested against it casually; endeavoring, somewhat, to appear 'useful.' If such a jarl as this thought I could be of assistance, blind though he surely knew I was, then I would gladly prove him right.

"So, the jarl thinks you may be of use to me." The voice that welcomed me was less than welcoming, and whistled like a meadow wind. "Oh, yes, he must be referring to my research into the dragons.

"I _could_ use someone to fetch something for me," he supplied, clearly not convinced. "Well, when I say 'fetch,' what I really mean is delve into a dangerous ruin in search of an ancient stone tablet that may, or may not, actually be there."

 _Ancient stone tablet, huh?_ I mused. _Found one of those before. I can handle this._ But his tone grated on me. Too much like the oily-slick sound of the Altmer; running past you disdainfully.

"What does this have to do with dragons?" I asked, cocking my head to hear how the sound of my voice moved in this room. It was smaller than the main hall, but the ceiling was just as high. It was populated by furniture, not messily, but as could be expected of a mage, I figured. My sister had always seemed to have more things than was needful. Farengar stood in the middle of it, barely gracing me with the conversation, such was his distance. He smelled pampered, and of parchment.

"Ah," his tone lifted a notch, and I found myself smirking at having wrangled his approval. "No mere brute mercenary but a thinker. Perhaps even a scholar?"

I let his question hang, not gracing this man of answers with what he sought. His haughty, study-stuck type did not need to know of my vagrancy, my learning under the tutelage of tradesman, my wringing wisdom from bandages wetted with my own blood.

"Go to Bleak Falls Barrow," he said finally, after his diatribe had already run long. I could not stop the curl of my mouth and the rise of my brows at the words that had, at last, caught my attention. "Find the tablet— no doubt interred in the main chamber— and bring it to me. Simplicity itself."

My pack slung easily down into the crook of my arm. With my free hand, I fished for the heavy, loathsome weight I had carried with me when I had trudged to Riverwood, in hopes that Lucan Valerius may have had a buyer pass through with eclectic taste. He had not when I had first come from Bleak Falls with his claw, but, running blind through Cyrodiil had taught me to come prepared. Now, it seemed, I _had_ finally found someone interested.

"Oh, you mean this old tablet, here?" I quipped casually, dropping my pack at the foot of the beam and displaying the tablet unceremoniously in one hand, as a housewife doing laundry might offer the washboard to her less than eager daughter.

"The tablet of Bleak Falls Barrow!" Farengar exclaimed, and a laugh of pure scholarly delight escaped him. "You already found it! You really are a cut above the usual brutes the jarl sends my way."

I handed the tablet over with more of the care it deserved, reveling again in having surprised the high and mighty court wizard and pulled respect out of him like a tooth.

"Now what?" I questioned, not entirely void of self-satisfaction or preening.

"Well," I heard him place the tablet delicately on his desk, and the subtle scrape of him centering it compulsively. "Now is where your work ends and mine begins."

I would have rolled my eyes if it would have done anything. 'My work?' I had 'worked' for that tablet without even knowing its worth, and I had done it weeks ago. Was that really all it took to aid a jarl and his wizard?

"The work of the mind," Farengar drawled, like a subtle jab under the table. "Sadly undervalued in Skyrim."

I smiled thinly, jostling my head side to side in a sarcastic mockery of laughter at his insult. Apparently no degree of impressive deeds would bridge the gap of his holier-than-thou condescension. I did not grace him with a 'good evening' as I pulled an ironic curtsy at his back when he returned to his work, promptly ignoring and dismissing me, and slipped out of Dragonsreach far calmer than I had entered it.

The pools beneath the castle, beside the stairs just before the square, were bitter cold when I took a quick dip to rub the dried, crusted sweat from my body for the night. Shivering my hurried way to Jorrvaskr, I wondered if the sun never quite managed to warm anything in this country.

My bed— at least, the one I'd chosen when I'd first joined, and which had thereafter been left alone for me— was waiting for me; welcoming. I peeled my wet armor off to hang and drip dry on a chair, and crawled beneath the coarse furs blissfully. Exhaustion, from my cross-country run, had already sealed my eyelids like mortar, and sleep was creeping like vines up my mind when the thought occurred— I forgot my pack in Farengar's study.

 _Doesn't matter,_ I wearily dismissed, already half sleeping. _I'll get it in the morning._

* * *

The Dragonsreach staff were already active when I returned the next morning. I had thought I would be unobtrusively early, but, not being able to judge daylight had ruined any sense of timing or punctuality I'd once had.

I heard Farengar's prattling before I reached his study. I lingered outside the wall for some minutes, not wishing to interrupt what sounded like a deep conversation with a colleague. Contextual observations and historical accounts, linguistical variances— it grated on me how I could not follow the topic, and instead waited for a pause, just enough breathing room for me to slip in, grab my pack, and go. But Farengar had, apparently, at some point in his mage's studies, developed the ability to breathe and speak simultaneously, for no gap of sufficient length presented itself as the wizard carried on his excited speech.

Giving up, I turned the corner with every intent of just getting in, grabbing the bag, and leaving before any real offense could be taken. But Farengar's voice and my own steps revealed my pack had been moved.

"You have a visitor," the colleague said lowly, beneath Farengar's chatter. My stomach knotted, and I did not know what to make of her tone. Did she feel imposed upon? Ought I to apologize? How could I break Farengar's diatribe long enough to ask where he— or, more likely, a servant— had moved my pack? But just as the wizard cut off mid-sentence, turning, I felt a rapid succession of increasing thumps in the floorboards. Someone was coming, quickly.

"Farengar!"

Irileth. I turned to make myself known and seen, my eyebrows high on my face with interest at the Dunmer's rush.

"You need to come at once. A dragon's been sighted nearby."

Her words were like ice water down my back and I shivered beneath the thick leather of my new armor. My heart began to pound, my blood to rush. How near was 'nearby?' Did we have time to run? To evacuate the city? At least this time we had forewarning—

" _You_ should come, too." Irileth's voice was pointed. At me. My head whipped about, surprised. Belatedly, I realized Farengar's colleague had already slipped out; leaving naught but her oddly muted scent— I could barely catch its whiff beneath the stamped leather of the armor she'd worn. Armor? I realized. On a mage's colleague? But the thought was smoke before a gale.

"A dragon? Where was it seen?" Farengar's enthusiasm had only piqued, and his robes swished past me in a rush. "What was it doing?"

"I'd take this a bit more seriously if I were you." Irileth sniffed with disdain, and I followed the two warily. Why was I needed? Come where? My skin itched all over with consternation. _Not again_ , I couldn't help thinking, in a distant, closed part of my head. _Not again, not again!_

" _If_ a dragon decides to attack Whiterun," the Dunmer said as we took some side stairs I had not noticed the night before, "I don't know if we can stop it."

 _You can't_ , I wanted to add, but thought better of it as I noted the guard walking behind me. No need to add despair to their alarm.

We crested the stairs, and I immediately smelled the jarl waiting for us, controlled anxiety rolling of him in waves; imperceptible but to my tongue, flicking out to wet my lips, chapped from the moment the word 'dragon' had rooted in my mind. Irileth went to stand before the jarl, the guard hanging back uncertainly, and Farengar's childish energy took up an antsy position on one side of a pillar. I planted myself tensely on the opposite side.

"So. Irileth tells me you came from the western watchtower?" Balgruuf invited briskly; it took me a moment to decipher to whom.

"Yes, my jarl," the guard— lingering and silent til now; the cause of this news, this commotion— supplied. But that was it, and he did not move. My brows came down and my lips thinned.

"Just tell him what you told me." Irilieth ordered him. Then, impatiently, "About the dragon."

"Uh, that's right." The man's footsteps came forward, and my mouth snapped shut at the raw terror of him on my tongue. If his hesitance had made me suspect dishonesty, the sour sting of his fear changed my mind. When he spoke, it was as a drunken man recalling how to walk.

"We saw it coming from the south." He said, stumbling, and suddenly I pitied the man. I knew this mind-shaking shock he was suffering. "It was fast. Faster than anything I've ever seen."

I could hear air moving, again— feel the wingbeats above me as he passed like a sentient tempest. My heart crawled up my chest to lodge beneath my throat, nearly choking me.

"What did it do?" Balgruuf demanded with unflappable calm, despite his urgency. My respect for the jarl rose. Even in danger, he cared for the peace of even an individual from his people, more than his position. "Is it attacking the watchtower?"

"No, my lord. It was circling overhead when I left. I never ran so fast in my life." I felt an answering burn in my legs, felt the scrapes on my knees as I dove breathlessly, near sobbing, into Helgen Keep. "I thought it would come after me for sure."

"Good work, son." Balgruuf soothed. "We'll take it from here. Head down to the barracks for some food and rest. You've earned it."

The guard did not mince steps as he gratefully accepted his jarl's kindness. It calmed me some, and I smiled, to think how it would not be food, but mead, the guard sought out first.

Suddenly, Balgruuf's tone was not calm, was not soothing. It was military and hard, with the pressure of lives on his shoulders.

"Irileth," he summoned the woman the two steps it took to stand before him. "You'd better gather some guardsmen and get down there."

"I've already ordered my men to muster near the main gate." The housecarl was all steadiness.

"Good. Don't fail me." Balgruuf did not sound himself. He sounded young and desperate— yet at once old and afraid. A commander of men who had faced odds like this before, seen death come on its coattails, and had hoped never to do so again.

I felt those worried eyes on me a moment before he spoke; just long enough for a perceptive dread to leaden my limbs.

"There's no time to stand on ceremony, my friend." There was apology there, beneath the commander's clip. "I need your help again."

 _Yes, I will help take your family to safety._ My mind rattled immediately, desperately. My face felt hard and cold and I could not swallow. _Yes, I will evacuate your city. Yes, I will run straight to Cyrodiil without stopping and fight my way to the Emperor's own antechamber and beg on my knees for his aid. I will. Anything to get away, anything—_

"I want you to go with Irileth and help her fight this dragon."

The utterly unwanted words struck me and it was like being blinded again. My nose, my tongue, my skin deadened and my ears rang with the memory of the dragon's cry that had thrown me from the headsman's block to the stones like so much nothing.

There was much I would do for this jarl, this kind jarl who had proven his worth when he looked past my blindness and our peoples' spite to honor me with his friendship. But I could not do this.

My throat worked but I managed no sound. I tried to shake my head, vehemently, refuse, but my neck muscles had clamped so hard I merely trembled and twitched.

" _You_ survived Helgen," the young, desperate Balgruuf was speaking to me now. He recognized my fear. _My fear._ I felt to drown in shame. "So you have more experience with dragons than anyone else here."

My body warmed, and I could feel again, smell— taste my own alchemical riot of emotion. What was I, to watch others run out to meet one of their bedside tales? To selfishly flee the other way as they faced down their nightmares made real?

Where was the honor of the Companions in me now?

"But I haven't forgotten the service you did for me in retrieving the Dragonstone for Farengar." Again, his sincerity humbled me.

 _It was nothing,_ I wished to refute, to slide beneath the floor and let the bitter taste of my shame be all that was left of me. _It was a coincidence, an accident._

"As a token of my esteem," he continued, undeterred, "I have instructed Avenicci that you are now permitted to purchase property in the city."

My heart wrenched. A mer. An unproven, vagrant mer, not in his hold for a moon yet, and he was welcoming me as a citizen.

 _If I live that long_ , part of me, the bitter part, scoffed.

"And, please," it was Balgruuf, himself, for a moment, as he moved to a chest by the wall, and pulled something out, right then, right there, "accept this gift from my personal armory." I did not move to take it, so he pressed it against my gut until my hands came up to close around it.

Boots. As fine of make as the Imperial armor I wore. And— my fingers thrummed with the subtle, near-imperceptible undertone of magic. Warm, like old coals.

A resist fire enchantment.

Tears pricked behind my eyes and my pulse pounded steady as a smith's hammer. If I was to face a dragon, gods knew I would need all the 'resist fire' I could get, if I wanted to come out alive.

I felt lined with steel, and my spine straightened; my chin lifted. Balguuf had faith in me— was doing his best to prepare me. His city, his people, were in danger and I— well. A blind coward was all the hope he had.

My heart tore between panic and duty, pushing blood cold and hot through me. My every inch of flesh rebelled this moment… but still I turned. Still, I began to walk. The jarl was right. These people had no idea what was coming; they had not (yet) lived it, as I had. Could I flee, and leave the kind ones to scream and weep and burn? Could I leave Adrienne, Jon— _Jorrvaskr_ — to Helgen's same fate?

"I should come along." Farengar blurted. Apparently, he could hold his peace no longer. "I would very much like to see this dragon."

The terror I was working _so_ hard to tamp down flared into fury at the mage's gall. Brushing past him, I hoped he felt my mockery. _Please,_ I thought, callous as he so unthinkingly was: _Do come along. I would_ love _to see you as a crater._

I left Balgruuf to his infantile wizard, nearly bounding down the stairs back into Dragonsreach's hall. I remembered my original reason for the morning's coming just as I passed Farengar's study. There were things in my pack of which I would have great need if I were to hold my ground against— my breath halted and I had to swallow, to force an urgent cough, to start it again— a dragon.

Finding my pack in an ignoble corner, I hefted it up and reached by rote for my bow. My hand met empty air. Ice flashed through my veins as I remembered my weapons still hanging idly in Jorrvaskr. I left the castle at a sprint.

Dragons did not wait on the timetables of men.

* * *

I was still securing the straps of my new boots as I ran through the uneven Whiterun countryside. The sun was still rising, and I used it to just head west; banking on catching the scent of Irileth and her men before I ran past my destination. What I did not count on was the smoke, and the smell of wreckage, nearly due west ahead of me.

 _Oh, no_ , I could scarcely keep from panicking, but the unending patience learned from years of being a step behind kept me running. Indeed, I did catch the undercurrent of Nords and a Dunmer, armed to the teeth, and curved my path to meet them.

"There's no sign of any dragon right now," Irileth was saying as I trotted up and caught my breath, "but it sure looks like he's been here." The wind had changed, blessedly carrying the smoke away from burning my throat and eyes.

 _But the guard said the dragon had just been circling_ , my mind churned to make sense of the smell of shorn stone and broken earth— a destroyed tower.

 _When he left_ , I realized, my pulse frantic as a hare's beneath the forced courage I clung to. _And how long ago was that?_

"I know it looks bad, but we've got to figure out what happened, and if that dragon is still skulking around somewhere.

"Spread out and look for survivors," Irileth ordered, taking charge, and I was glad for something to focus on. The men around me unsheathed their weapons and we all trotted toward what was left of the tower.

It was an effort to breathe deeply, to search for the smell of blood or Man through the overwhelming choke of burning and dust. I coughed, and sought higher ground, away from the worst of the debris. I pulled myself up a half-fallen staircase, and strained my ears for, maybe, cries of help or sounds of pain.

"No!" A voice reached me, and I whipped toward it, locating— inside the tower. "Get back! It's still here somewhere! Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it!"

Instinct flashed within me. Immediately, I crouched low, and felt smoke roll past me. Would it mask my scent, my view, from a great, sneaking predator?

"Kynareth save us," the oath came strained with desperation, "here he comes again!"

My heartbeat slowed and I willed myself to feel, to hear— Fear coiled inside my ribs, threatening to cripple my breath— I was there again. In Helgen— the beast tearing through buildings— the terrible screaming as fire erupted before me, a Stormcloak man roasting alive— I was running, running— struggling to keep up, swearing, scanning— a body splattering beside me, dropped from the dragon's talons at height, pieces of the soldier spraying across my bare legs—

"Look alive!" Irileth's unfazed strength ripped me back into the present. I could feel the air move, like a butterfly passing my nose; the sensation that I had learned— so painfully— foretold great, distant wingbeats. "And make every arrow count!"

This was not Helgen. My hands were not bound. My bow was hard in my right hand, the fingers of my left brushing the dagger on my belt, the shield strapped to my back, before slipping an arrow out of my quiver and holding it at the ready.

A scraping roar, like a mountain come alive, and my flesh trembled, weak— but my spirit rose within me as though roaring back.

 _Come on, hellspawn_. My mouth curled in a snarl, with a bravery I had never known before. I goaded the beast as it approached, silently ordering it to come closer; come into range.

The wind whipped around the tower, and there he was. My bow came up and I shot— missed. I snatched another arrow, ears seeking, skin gauging. The air screamed around me and I was knocked down.

The dragon had landed beside me.

A great, dry creak, and then heat erupted— away. He had not roasted me. Had not snapped me between his jaws.

He had not seen me.

Breathing fast through my nose, mouth clamped shut to keep from shouting, I jumped up, shoving the arrow hard into the beast's chest.

It slid right off, scratching the scales only, and I tumbled down the stairs for my effort. Laughter as deep and violent as thunder followed me.

I scrambled to my feet, heart pounding. It _laughed_. The dragon _laughed_.

Air slapped me and I staggered; the dragon taking off again on its great wings. Harsh, guttural sounds followed it, something like words— they turned as they entered my mind and— I understood him.

"I've forgotten what fine sport you mortals could provide," the beast was mocking, toying with us. _Speaking_. The gods-damned thing could _speak_.

I ran around the tower, to meet the dragon in its flight. I felt for the wingbeats, the sounds, and turned my head this way and that, straining to hear where they were in the air. Lightning magic crackled, hitting the dragon, hurting it— there he was.

My fingers split and bled for how fast, how hard I drew and released my bowstring. The arrow slit through the air before it disappeared from my senses. The dragon screeched, the air it moved clumsy now.

"Yes," I barked savagely, my blood surging, and I chased it down.

The ground shook like a boat on the sea. The dragon had landed. I heard great jaws snap, and a guard cry out. I nocked another arrow and shot. The dragon hissed and I heard its great neck turn, scales clicking and sliding. Its chest creaked and my blood ran cold. I scrambled for my shield, rolled and dove for anything to hide behind—

Fire engulfed me. Cowering behind my shield, I felt the hide catch aflame, the fittings heat. I screamed as the heat sucked me dry, and my boots flared in answer; their magic taking the brunt of what would have been a killing inferno. My skin parched and cracked, flayed— in places, blistered and burned.

It stopped. The dragon took to the air, passing above me— the force knocking me to the ground. I rolled desperately, snuffing the clinging flames from my armor. Dust ground into my burns and I grit my teeth against the pain, but I had greater things to concern me.

"Keep firing!" Irileth shouted, somewhere.

The dragon breathed fire again, and I heard a guard scream, as I had. My feet churned beneath me as I sprinted, my breath tearing my throat. The hand not holding my bow yanked a healing potion from my pack, and I downed it— letting my lungs convulse for air as I prioritized the inside-out sealing of my burns. The bottle shattered as I tossed it aside, my blisters shrinking, gone; my cracked skin sealing, unmarred.

Arrows flitted around me— the screams of the guard faded, and I shook with rage. _He's dying!_

"Aim for the wings!" I screamed, and let off a shot as the dragon pulled higher on a down beat. Again, that furious roar, and thunder beneath my feet. He had crashed, and I imagined our arrows peppering his torn and bleeding wings.

I whirled and sprinted, my bow clattering on my shoulder, as I reached for my dagger. The rumble of his laugh met me.

"You are brave." His impossible, impossible voice spurred me on. I did not want to hear this monster speak to me more. "Your defeat brings me honor."

He snapped at me and I ducked, dove; expecting it. I was close to him now, his neck could not bend enough to reach me, to rend me between his massive, clicking teeth. His feet moved as he turned, and I only reacted. I leaped, my fingers digging into scales, cutting and bleeding at the unexpected sharpness— and I threw myself onto his great, swinging head. He could not bite me here.

Dagger hard in my hand, I slashed and slashed at the hard, protective scales of his mouth, his nose— I held on with legs and my other hand, his thrashing nearly throwing me. Scales chipped, broke, beneath my dagger, and I brought it down again and again— I found tender skin by his nose, his eyes.

He roared and roared, and I remembered the screaming guard. I held on, and hacked, and hoped the beast suffered as he had.

My securing hand found a cleft between his eyes. With both hands, I brought my dagger down, rending through and lodging into the monster's skull.

The body beneath me shuddered, and my blood-slickened hands slipped from my stuck dagger, and I finally fell.

"Dovahkiin?" The dragon moaned— shocked, horrified, desperate— dying. My heart pounded, blood trickled down my face and over my sneering lips. I felt the beasts claws scrabble mindlessly against stone and dirt. His body twitched hard, outside his control.

"No!" He wheezed, and crumpled— the sudden drop of him nearly tossing me to the quaking ground.

My breath escaped me, as a hysterical, voiceless laugh. We did it. We _did_ it! We—

An inaudible ripple of sound rumbled from the fallen dragon, passing through my chest like a wave and setting my heart to racing. Oh, gods. Was he alive? Was this some final trick?

"Everybody, get back!" Irileth cried, behind me. I retreated a step, too late.

Something ripped through me, but painlessly. Stunned, I could only stand there and take it. It was like— like lightning magic, but cool, and it didn't hurt, it just— it just felt like _bright_ running through me, filling my veins, it—

Words turned in my head, years I'd never lived lined up. Sights I'd never seen from eyes that were not mine flashed, blurred, slipped away— Suddenly, I remembered the words I'd felt, read, on the wall of Bleak Falls Barrow. Words that had struck me like lighting, made _sense_ — they did so again. I felt a word build in my throat, like a cough, like a— a shout. I wanted to shout it, like my whole heart, my mind, my _life_ , was in my throat and I could just spit it and it would _blast_ —

The feeling faded. I snapped back to myself like a bowstring returns to its line. I swayed, blinking. My limbs shook, as though with battle fever, but I did not feel ill, or weak. I felt— indeed, I felt… _stronger_. Mightier than I had, running into the fight scant minutes ago.

"I can't believe it," a guard came running, and my ears woke back up to hear the feet of the rest, hurrying to me. I turned, and slowly, slowly focused. "You're… dragonborn."

My brows came down at the foreign word. It certainly _felt_ like I'd just been reborn, somehow— memories tickled the back of my mind and they were not mine. My throat worked, dry as a bone. I swallowed once, twice.

"I'm— what?" I managed to croak.

"In the very oldest tales, back when there were still dragons in Skyrim, the Dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power." His voice turned awed. "That's what you did, isn't it? Absorbed the dragon's power?"

"I—" I felt foolish, alarmed. Is that what happened? Already the wisps of memories were sloughing from my mind, not belonging, but the sudden knowledge, the word, the— power. My throat welled with it again, and I swallowed it down.

"I don't know what happened to me." My voice was little more than a whisper as my mind reeled.

"There's only one way to find out. Try to Shout. That would prove it."

I felt slapped. Shout? How could he know that's what it felt like, when the— power?— had torn through me, how did he know I had felt to just, just— My thoughts failed me.

"According to the old legends," he said, as though realizing I was mer, and so out of my depth; "Only the Dragonborn can Shout without training, the way the dragons do."

 _Training_ , I pondered. _So this "Shouting" is a kind of magic?_ My chest burned as though it might creak like the dragon's had. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to run a mile.

 _Yes, it certainly feels like magic_ , I thought tremulously, half-smiling, half-hysterical.

"Dragonborn? What are you talking about?" Another of the guards walked forward, and I stepped aside, hoping they might forget about me. My foot kicked against something brittle and I jumped. The dragon, it— I inhaled, and smelled only bone. What had happened to it? It had— burned? Utterly? When I…?

"That's right," a soldier marveled, "my grandfather used to tell stories about the Dragonborn. Those born with the dragon blood in 'em. Like old Tiber Septim, himself."

I turned to him, brows knitting. Did they think I was some ancient hope made real? Like the dragon had been an ancient fear?

A guard stretched in his armor, proudly quipping, "I never heard of _Tiber Septim_ killing any dragons."

"There weren't any dragons then, idiot." The first guard rebutted, impatient. "They're just coming back now for the first time in… forever."

His voice turned to me and I cringed.

"But the old tales tell of the Dragonborn who could kill dragons and steal their power. _You_ must be one!"

 _I_ must _be nothing_ , I wanted to snap at him— wanted to weep, to collapse— but somehow, impossibly, my body was steady and silent as the settled dragon bones beside me.

I felt like an autumn leaf still clinging to the tree as the first storm rolled terribly in. The day had just begun, was far from over, and I could still remember waking with only fetching my pack on my mind. I could still feel the swamp of terror pooled at the end of my limbs, pricking, numbing— the exultation of victory coloring my every breath with joy at still being alive. In hours— had it even been that?— I had been buffeted between coward and savior, stranger and comrade, and now, now—!

"What do you say, Irileth? You're being awfully quiet."

"Come on, Irileth, tell us. Do you believe in this Dragonborn business?"

I turned to the Dunmer, not knowing what expression played on my face. I wanted to hear what she had to say. More, I wanted her to— what? Quiet them all? Let me go home to my bed in Jorrvaskr and shut this all away behind a blanket pulled over my head? My head still rang with that, that word— _fus_. Force. I, I knew what it meant. Like I had known what the dragon had said.

First at the whispering wall in Bleak Falls, now here… This wasn't going away. I couldn't run from this. I couldn't _handle_ this—!

"Some of you would be better off keeping quiet than flapping your gums on matters you don't know anything about." Irileth's words were harsh, her tone unfazed.

"Here's a dead dragon. And that's something I _definitely_ understand. Now we know we can kill them. But I don't need some mythical 'Dragonborn.'" She looked at me and, inside and out, I stilled. "Someone who can put down a dragon is more than enough for me."

The respect in her voice buoyed me. This same woman who had been ready to run me through at my insistence to speak to her jarl, now held me in honor— whether or not I was "dragonborn."

But their words rang true. The one guard, he had spoken of shouting. And how could it be _that_ was the feeling that overwhelmed me, when I wouldn't have known it should? I thought the word again, focused. Felt for it in my chest. Something rose in me. It was— _me_.

" _FUS!_ " The word left me like a blast; truly, like force. Dust puffed, the ground jerked as it was struck, and I reeled; barely kept my feet.

"She summons the Th'um!" A guard, awestruck.

"That was Shouting— what you just did!"

Now that I had done it— My thoughts only rioted the harder. What magic was this? What dichotomic, Nordic sorcery? I, who had only, ever, the Aetherius in me for a spark to light a campfire— what had I done? What was _happening?_ I felt— The leaf of me snapped free of the tree and was sucked away on the wind. I felt at once too close and too far from everything, to nothing, all at once. The cloy of ancient bones was too impossible, too near— the surety in my stance faltered and I, I— I was falling. Nothing more than a leaf with nothing left to give, tumbling miles down from the Valenwood canopy— perhaps never to reach the bottom; the wind stringing me, helpless, along for years until I decayed, midair.

I couldn't be here. I _couldn't_. My legs were stumps of exhaustion, of confusion, but still I made them move. Irileth had more to say, but her words were raindrops tearing through me and away; I did not hear them. If I could just put distance between me and this— _this_ — I would be fine. I _was_ , I—

I ran.

"I'm glad you're on our side," a soldier smiled as I passed him on the road. I did not slow, could not think of anything to do or say in reply.

 _They think I'm a hero,_ I thought, despairing. _How could I be?_

I had Shouted. I had comprehended the speech of a dragon. I could not deny those facts. But that did not mean I had to embrace them.

My lungs began to burn, my chest heaved, but still I ran. I ran until I could run no more without risking ruining myself. The sweaty tang of the Whiterun's outer guards on patrol had never been so welcome. I hopped over a creek, neatly breaking from wilderness into the outer city.

The very sky cracked and I whirled, crouched, but the ground also seemed to rend.

" _DO-VAH-KIIN!_ " The air shook and I cowered. My bow was in my hand, an arrow at the ready, and I had not known I'd drawn. Where was the dragon? Where—

With a parting crack, very much like natural thunder, this time, the air thinned once more; Nirn stilled beneath me.

I took a tentative step forward, still nearly hugging the ground. My ears sang silently, and I felt wetness beneath one lobe. Touching a finger to it and bringing it to my nose, my tongue— I bled. The cacophony had been so loud, my sensitive ears had split under the pressure.

Scowling, I smudged away the rest of the blood and wiped it in the grass.

 _I hate dragons_ , I seethed.

* * *

The steps from Dragonsreach were warm, yet, as the sun set. My fingers worried at the hem of my armor, and I did not move even for guards. There was room enough for them to go around me, and I had nowhere else to settle my thoughts.

A thane. Jarl Balgruuf had made me a thane. A title of honor, Lydia had said, and in response I shoved the carved, heavy, excellent axe into her hands and dismissed her from me. My housecarl?

 _Thane_ , I thought, and was shaken all over again. It _was_ honorable, I knew it to be. But I could not tote that— that magnificent, huge weapon around. It was tall as I was! And the title… I was barely rounding on my twenty-third mortal year. I could not be second to a jarl in nobility! Not for— for the scant things I had done.

A knot in my throat pressed painfully as I tried to swallow, my face flushing. I could not return to Jorrvaskr with a woman like Lydia in tow— a seasoned warrior, older than me, far more worthy of thanehood than I. _I_ was still learning to be a Companion. How could I go back to them, drink with them, as a Thane?

I stood, and popped what joints had stiffened during my stillness of thought. No, let it be a thing in record only. I would not speak of it, and my Shield-Siblings would not know of it. I took the last of the stairs leisurely, my mind still mulling over something else that had been said.

The Greybeards wished my audience. I chewed a cheek, my brow furrowing. The Greybeards were the Nordic equivalent of shamans, I had gathered. Men of great wisdom, ancient knowledge, and power. But I was Mer. What could they know of me? What could they want of me?

 _Dovahkiin_ , they had said. The word shifted as I thought of it: _Dragonborn_ , it meant. From their mountaintop they had seen me? Rather, felt me?

My teeth clenched, and I breathed the balm of the old, dead Gildergreen as I passed it by. If the Greybeards wanted to see me so badly, they could find me. I was _not_ a hound to be whistled for.

Jorrvaskr was muggy with energy as I entered, and I felt my sore body begin to unwind. The dragon had not touched this hall; its fire had not taken it from me.

"Lir," Torvar barked, winning a smile from me as I met him halfway. "Where've'ya been?"

"Oh," I waved absently, "just to Riverwood and back." Like a stone drop, I remembered the mission Farkas had sent me on what felt like moons ago, but had only been the day before. Torvar was curiously still beside me. Well, still for a man swaying with drink. I hoped he did not catch all that I was not saying— the dragon, the Thanehood, the Greybeards' summons. My heart tried to sprint with the panic I had buried, the emotions I did not want— but I was practiced at pushing it down; at forcing my cowardice to hide.

"Speaking of which, I need to get back to Farkas about that." I excused myself, hopefully smoothly, and Torvar grunted, shrugging.

"Good to have you back, whelp," he said in parting, and I grinned at the endearing way he said it; not with the snapping hierarchy of the Circle members.

"Good to be back," I muttered fondly, sincerely. The familiar smells, and sounds of camaraderie were like an embrace as I moved through them. There truly was no feeling like coming home after a long, trying day. And as I felt, acutely, the absence of a shield on my back— it had been burnt to uselessness under the dragonfire— I could almost laugh, or cry, about the day I'd had.

I finally found Farkas outside in the yard, sitting ponderously beside the archery targets.

"Farkas," I greeted warmly. His armor moved as he raised his head.

"Hey, you're back," I could hear his answering smile in his rocky voice and felt my lips pull higher. I liked Farkas the best out of all the Companions for how easy he was for me to read.

It was difficult, at best, to guess anybody's expression, or feel like I wholly grasped their intended meaning— what with my getting only half of the words' execution. But with Farkas, he was a quick study. And it wasn't because he was simple, as some seemed to think. It was because he was genuine.

I slipped onto the dirt beside him, realizing I needed his unhurried, unruffled presence to make up for the gods-forsaken day I'd had. I unclipped my fletching knife from my pack before sliding the weight from my shoulders. Pulling my quiver into my lap, I began clipping and whittling arrows that had gotten crumpled, singed, or splintered during my tumbling in the dragon fight.

Some moments passed like that. Contented. In my first week as a whelp, Farkas had been the only one kind to me. He'd welcomed me and been open about answering my curiosities about his own past and views. He'd been the one to pass along my first job.

"I took care of the problem in Riverwood," I said to him eventually, my eyes drifting aimlessly as I focused on feeling down the shaft and testing the feather splay of each arrow.

"I heard," he replied, and I turned to him, surprised. "You seem to have a knack for this kind of thing."

My smile was bashful at the praise. The Khajiit had taught me well, it seemed.

"I'll make sure people in charge know." He added, and I chewed my bottom lip as I beamed.

 _Hard work_ , I thought, almost dreamily. _That's all I need to do. Work hard, show them what I'm made of, and you never know when someone will be watching. I'll prove myself yet._

"Thank you," I murmured, quiet enough that I didn't know if he'd even hear it.

Weight moved my shoulder, and I nearly cut my hand open on my fletcher's knife. I held it away instinctively as my whole torso bent and recovered. I laughed, realizing Farkas had shoved me like a brother would. I pushed him back and he barely moved. His laugh was open-throated and sincere, and though I blushed at my wind to his mountain, I laughed all the same.

A little scuffle ensued, where I turned my arrows and knife out of my lap, and got up on my heels to try again. Farkas pushed back and it became mostly a laughing fest, where I tried to keep from falling while he pushed.

It was an aimless spar. No, less than that: The simple roughhousing of friends. ( _Friends_ , my eyes nearly pricked at the thought, but I did not let myself forget the game. _Oh_ , how I needed a friend just now. How I desperately needed simple.)

My teeth gritted with my laboring and Farkas's laughing breath in my face— the bull of a man wasn't even _trying_ , was he?— I braced a foot against the stone behind me, and shot out with the other to trip him. When he fell, it was with a mighty crash and a wheeze as the breath left him in surprise.

I held a hand out to help him up, grinning in a decidedly evil and victorious way.

"Nice trick," Farkas laughed, spitting out the dust that had clung to him when he fell. He accepted my hand and I braced myself to take his weight.

"Thank—"

Farkas yanked on my arm and I toppled gracelessly to the dirt, braced legs or not. When I brushed my hair from my forehead and turned, the man was laughing like he'd fall all over again. I blinked, realizing he'd switched our places somehow. A smile split my face.

"Nice trick." I parroted, beaming, and held my hand up for his help. He didn't even hesitate and my heart warmed bittersweetly. I would my true brother had been so guileless. So accepting.

He pulled me to my feet easily and I brushed myself off, still smiling, him still chuckling. Remembering my arrows, I tapped my feet and turned my head around slowly. Where had we moved to in our wrestling? I padded my way slowly back and knelt, feeling for them. I heard Farkas come up next to me, and my face burned. With true shame, this time.

I said nothing, only hurried to pull them all into a bundle in one fist, to stop him seeing my handicap so close, so real— but leather stretched and steel clicked, the ground thumping as his weight hit dirt and stone. His gauntleted hands moved to and fro, his bark-rough fingers pressing arrows into my hands I hadn't noticed.

Still, I said nothing, and neither did he, as I leaned back to the way I'd been minutes ago, and resumed fletching with single-minded purpose. I listened as Farkas settled next to me, again. I spared thought only long enough to wonder why he would sit out here, still and silent, when there was a perfectly good mead hall teeming with life a stone's throw away.

But I felt no judgment, no stiffness, no anxiety in him and so I gradually relaxed. My thoughts trickled away and narrowed to my fletching, and content quiet settled over us again, as slowly as the night across the valley.

"How're you doing that?" Farkas' deep rumble woke me, as it were, from dreaming. I lifted my head, realizing he'd been watching me.

"Oh, it's—" I floundered, shrugging and gesturing. "It's nothing."

"Well," he mulled slowly, "you've a blade in your hand, doing real delicate-like work. And you can't see what you're doing." His bluntness made my heart forget what it was doing for a moment, til I twitched and swallowed it away.

I heard him shrug. "And you're doing real good." He finished.

Again, I fumbled for words.

"Thanks," I finally managed, but it was slanted in the straight air and I cringed.

 _He asked you a question, Lir_ , I thought sternly. I breathed in as deeply as my chest allowed, and quietly let it out. I trained my ears on Farkas to find him still sitting, still looking; patient and unperturbed as a pup.

My mouth quirked up fondly. This man was not the same as his brother. He was only curious.

"I've been doing this for years," I finally shrugged. "In Valenwood, it's just one of the things you learn to do when you're a child and too clumsy, yet, for anything else. Your parents, your elder siblings, will give you the bones from their kills, and teach you to whittle. To craft and fletch arrows. It's just fundamental. It teaches you patience and attention to detail— the most important skills for a hunter."

I whittled as I talked, and something within my chest loosened. It had been so long since I had talked about Valenwood. About— home. I had run away, long ago, and refused to look back. But now that I had… I could see that not all of it had been bad.

"And when I lost my sight," I continued, the words coming like a fountain from me. I didn't know I had more to say until it was on my tongue. "I didn't want to do nothing. I just— practiced. I remembered the feeling of it, and that's what I focused on. You don't— you don't need eyes to do most things. Not really."

I shrugged, my last arrow went back in the quiver, and Farkas had not moved. I couldn't swallow around the sudden anxiety in my throat. Farkas had recounted his past to me, once; the idea of it, at least. I had not returned the favor… not til now. The moment's pause stretched long for me and I fretted so self-consciously in the wait for his reaction.

"Hunh," was all he said, dumbfounded and low, and somehow it was everything.

"So," he labored over the word, as though the thinking was taking a great deal of effort. "You can't see _anything_?"

I chewed a lip and shrugged off any sting at the question.

 _He doesn't mean anything by it,_ I reminded myself. _It's not his fault. He only wants to know more about you. How you— work._

"Not really," I answered finally, proud of how lighthearted my voice sounded. "If the sun's out, I can tell that versus if it's night. Or if I'm facing a lantern. But it's just light or darkness. No real shapes. Nothing else."

I slipped my arms back through the straps of my pack, and clipped my quiver to its place. I started to stand, more than ready to turn in and sleep until the ache in my bruised bones left me.

"But you move okay." Farkas' voice was puzzled.

I couldn't help smiling. _He's like a Khajiit,_ I thought affectionately. _No concept at all of darkness._

"Well, _these_ aren't just for show," I teased, flicking one long, pointed ear. "Or these." I wiggled my fingers at him.

His silence belied his continued confusion. I shrugged my pack back off and turned on the dirt toward him.

"For example," I told him, "I can hear that you're sitting there. Or when you lean one way, or move an arm or something. I can feel the air move if you breathe in my direction. If I focus, I can feel the footsteps of guards on their patrols nearby, through the dirt." I put my hands on the ground to illustrate and I heard him nod.

"Like that— you nodded, but I didn't have to see it to know. I can hear the bindings of your armor stretch a certain way, the plates shifting."

"Oh," the word was drawn out, like a child making a realization. I grinned.

"But," I added, lifting a finger for his pause, "I can get details of things by feel. I know _my_ pack, _my_ quiver, from any other when I touch it. Just like you would probably know your sword by sight."

"Yeah," he said firmly, and I swallowed a laugh, but kept a smile, for his fervency.

"I can only guess and imagine the shapes of things by hearing them. In order to— picture them, I have to learn them by touch."

"Oh," he said again. Then: "Do you know what I look like?"

That startled me.

"Uh, no." I laughed, uncertain again. Did he understand me? "I don't."

"Well, that's not right." His from was loud in his voice. "We're Shield-Siblings."

I started to get up, placating. "Farkas, I—"

"Come on, then." He settled on the ground, leaned forward far. Unable to help it, I laughed and pushed him back.

"All right, all right," I said, "You don't have to do that. Just— just sit back. Yeah."

I patted my hands on the thighs of my armor; partly a nervous tick, partly to wipe the moisture from my palms, and partly so the slight sound would let me know where to aim to find his face. I breathed in… out. And reached.

His cheeks were rougher and his hair longer than I'd imagined. His round, Mannish ears were hidden behind the lanky curtain and I smiled slightly, bittersweetly. Seeing folk did not have to worry about their hair muffling their hearing, and putting them in harm's way.

I laughed aloud when my fingers found his nose. Wide and fleshy and squat— I pictured it through my sliding fingertips, and couldn't help but smile at how different it was from a Mer's.

Hair prickled my palms and my eyebrows quirked. Outlining his jaw, the pricks continued under his chin and presumably down his neck. I had pegged Farkas as one to neglect shaving, and I smirked to be proved right.

On the way back up his face, I was careful not to linger on his mouth, aware of how intimate my version of vision was. It was enough to know his mouth was as wide, his lips as thick and fleshy, as had been his nose. It tickled me to think that the features of Men were so… unnecessarily _much_.

His eyes were set deep under a straight, flat brow. My own eyebrows came down at the feeling of his flat, soft forehead. Where were a Man's brows? Did they lack a proper ridge? How could they read each other's expressions at all in such flat, soft, undefined faces?

Something came off on my thumb and I paused, rubbing two fingers together. Dry, but originally some kind of oil? I smelled deeply but there was little scent other than Nord. I returned to the skin around his eyes, feeling gingerly, blinking thoughtfully.

"Warpaint," Farkas spoke up.

"Oh," I blurted stupidly, the explanation dawning over me obviously.

With one last brush from hairline to chin, I pulled my hands away and fitted the features together in my mind. Finally, I smiled into my Brother's face— the face I could now picture when he spoke.

"Nice to meet you, Farkas," I quipped, and listened to him laugh. I imagined his eyes crinkling, cracking the dry warpaint. My heart dropped as I realized— I would never know what color his eyes were. No amount of listening, feeling, would give me that. Judging by the warmth of him, the depth of his voice, I imagined, perhaps, brown. I tried to picture it and—

 _What does brown look like?_

My whole body drooped at the thought. My blood ran with ice. Colors. I had lost the memory of colors.

Farkas said something, his voice light, and I smiled half-heartedly as he laughed more.

My memory told me the sky was blue. I could remember the word, but not the sight. I labored over a memory of sky, framed by Valenwood canopy— and could not. My eyes began to well and I stood abruptly, the forgotten weight of my pack a surprise on my shoulders.

"I'm really tired, Farkas," I said quickly, and knew he would not question my haste. "I'm going to turn in."

"Good night, Lir," he called after me, unconcerned, even though I'd started walking before he'd even had a chance to respond.

Warmth and dim light welcomed me within Jorrvaskr's heavy door. I passed candles and torches.

Fire— Red, my mind spat the word. I could not see it.

My heart beat harder, faster, the more steps I took, when I met the stairs to the living quarters; passed the weapons hung in honor on the walls and beams.

Metal— Silver? Gold? My mind ached for thinking, for laboring. A sob became a cough as I stumbled toward my bed, forgetting to listen to my footing.

I felt the Wolf stretch within me, the stress of the day, the dragon— dead— and my gained— unearned—title stirring her; my senses peaking with grief prodding her from her between-moons slumber.

Thoughts of colors and loss dripped away like wax in the face of fire.

 _Go to sleep_ , I told the beast, yanking myself into calm. _This is yet_ my _body._ Easily, she went; faded.

The furs were soft beneath me as I pressed my face into them, silently straining with my pain. I wanted to run to Ria, Njada, Athis, Torvar— shake them each awake and demand they describe to me blue, and red, silver, gold, green, yellow— slap them for their complaints, their arguments, and scream that I had slain a dragon, won the day, by rights— but had forgotten the sky, the clouds, and _were they not grateful for them?_

My hands shook as I slid my pack beneath my bed. My feet were weak as I kicked off my boots, nudged them into the corner by the dresser. My armor I kept, rolling myself up in my blankets like a child; feeling every prod and harsh crease against my skin with cruel pleasure.

I had stopped pretending to see a long time ago.

Now I remembered why.


	4. Chapter 4

_"They called me 'whelp' for another sennight, and sometimes I laughed and thought, 'Thane Whelp.' I got used to it. I worked with it. I did not think my chance for Proving would come so soon as it did."_

* * *

Aela clapped me on the shoulder when we got back, pushed me into a seat at the table in front of the great fire. If my laugh was louder than usual, my cheeks warmer, my conversation freer, it was because I had taken down a troll side by side with the Huntress, and had come back alive.

"I hear you might be tougher than you look," Aela had mused the night before. "Come hunting with me at first light, and I will be the judge of it."

Now, her hard voice was curbed with a wide smile as she urged me to tell of how I had clung to a rock face and thrown a dagger into the beast's neck, to get it to open its mouth for Aela's killing shot.

Mead moved freely from barrels to mugs to mouths, as every Companion present had their own day's boasts to add.

I was alive with the energy of it. The motion around me was contagious, the competing voices and friendly jibes stronger than the drink. I shoved and pushed in turn, laughed; tipped Torvar's bottle as he drank it so he spilled it down his bearded chin, spluttering around a guffaw— so different from the day I'd faced a dragon and returned shaken, weary, and broken spirited.

The day was not wholly done. I craved to do yet more.

 _There has to be some new troublemaker who could do with humbling,_ I thought, reaching for my walking stick and finding it on the second try.

I sought out Farkas, my head feeling curiously light on my shoulders— as though a stray thought might send it tipping, turning, toppling off. I shook it to clear it, and the floor turned unevenly beneath my feet. I frowned, and leaned heavily on the staff.

"Farkas," I called, uncharacteristically. I usually turned up my nose at Men's habit of treating people like dogs to be beckoned, but right now, sounds were spinning oddly before they reached my ears and all I could smell was the sour-honey on my breath.

My voice wobbled back to me and I could make out a bulky shape on a bench, details lost in a new round of shouting back at the table. I closed my mouth and smelled— it had to be Farkas. I moseyed over and slowly lowered myself next to him on the bench, holding my staff loosely in one hand.

"I believe there's some sort of fun happening over there." I gestured with the head of my stick, eyebrows raised and mouth in a perfectly serious line. But I lost hold of it and smiled sloppily, snickering. When he said nothing, and I heard him take a large bite out of some bread in his hand, I elbowed him playfully.

"Hey, come on," I pressed, frowning a little; worried I had offended the big man. "I was just teasing you."

A deep sigh, as one wretchedly put-upon, answered me and my eyes drifted shut in disbelief.

"You sure are a talkative one, aren't you?" A familiar drawl sounded.

I had singled out the wrong brother.

I could not help scowling testily as I recognized the subtle jerk of his hand toward the table where the others ate, drank, and laughed. So he had been watching us, me, from here, had he? Was he so self-important that some little merry-making between friends made him turn up his nose?

"Occasionally," I retorted, my voice immediately devoid of the warmth it had had when I'd mistaken him for Farkas. What grated more was that, no, I was not usually much of a talker. Today had been a diversion from the norm, due to the morning's events.

"When the occasion calls for it." I added, subtly digging at him for remaining apart while his comrades reveled.

"Aela has taken down trolls before, on her _own_." His voice was pointed as a blade and just as cold. "This," he motioned again with a hand and snorted softly. "This is not for you."

Were I a furred beast, my hackles would have risen. As it was, a silent growl crackled deep in my throat as my jaw tensed with anger. I felt my nails dig into the wood of my staff, the underside of the bench.

Farkas had told me how he and Vilkas had been raised by the Companions. I wondered if it was that seniority, that staked claim, that Vilkas held over me. That I was an untried, untested youngling playing at his perceived greatness.

Had I not shown discipline these weeks now passed? Had I not shown promise in the tasks I'd taken on, the contracts I had completed? And yet this man still scoffed when I so much as crossed his shadow; I could still feel his unimpressed sneer when I put salve on my bruises after a brawl, changed my bandages after a cross-hold trek took me past a cave of bears. To him, I was a short, skinny, blind, weak little slip of a whelp, with no name and no right to share his roof.

But Vilkas was not alone in that. Njada took any chance she could to bump into me, see if I would fall. Said near every day she still couldn't see why I'd been let in at all. Athis, too, loved to quip about my inferiority; how it seemed the Companions were "letting anyone in these days."

They did not yet know how long I could wait. They did not know the dozen years I spent learning to walk sure and straight again; more than two decades of patiently memorizing every sound and what its tone, quality, duration, strength meant. Turning scents into thoughts, movements, attributes of things I could not see.

However long it took, they would realize that I was strong despite my size— despite my eyes. That I was Lir.

And for that, I could be very patient, indeed.

I stared into the blankness straight ahead as though he did not sit beside me.

"Even so," I murmured finally, smiling serenely, "I can enjoy it."

I did turn to him then, my head cleared enough that I could sense he was looking at me, too; sitting stiff as though a part of the bench, himself. I plastered my unruffled smile wider at his dismissive grunt, and obligingly stood to leave him to his conceited brooding.

"Hey," he barked at my back after a few steps, and I closed my eyes, seeking calm, before I turned to face him with a sugary sweet expression.

"Skjor was looking for you earlier." He said it with reluctant grandeur, as though it meant a great deal despite how much he loathed to be a message boy.

"What did he want?" I prodded, my smile becoming genuine as I enjoyed his figurative demotion.

"He didn't say," he shot back, his voice clipped. "But he sounded impatient."

I chewed the inside of one cheek thoughtfully. What could Skjor want with me? He was a legend, that man, and when talk had reached me about his one battle-blinded eye, I had itched to seek his mentorship on combat. Who else could better teach me, train me, besides one who knew my struggle?

 _Well,_ I mused wistfully, thinking what I'd give for one good eye out of two; _Most of it._

"I wouldn't keep him waiting." Vilkas urged, as to an underfoot toddler. I glared at him as best I could, not even knowing if he was looking, and stomped away; the thumping of my staff against the ground advertising my ire.

 _One of these days,_ I fumed, but could not think of anything strong enough. Just - _One of these gods-damned days...!_

A hand on my shoulder stilled me, steadied me. One foot raised to go down the steps to the living quarters, I paused and turned, gauging who it was.

"Don't let them intimidate you, Sister." Aela murmured, encouraging.

My mouth quirked sideways. _Aela._ I took heart at her words, but more that she'd noticed, come over, thought me a 'Sister'— told me so. She had been the one to tell me about the Companions in the first place; the one to tell me where to go to join up, if I thought I could. And now, today, she had taken me hunting and brought me back under her arm as a true elder sister might. She was tough as nails, yet here she was putting a hand out to buoy me up.

She gave my shoulder a companionable shake as she said, "We both know how to keep our heads while the men let their hearts rule."

Silently, I thrilled to be considered in the same 'we' as her. I wondered if my teeth-baring smile told her so.

But her words reminded me of the reason for my frustration, and I absently breathed in his faded musk, yards away.

"I'm not sure that one _has_ a heart," I said with mock-loftiness, gesturing with my free hand to where Vilkas sat. I could hear him from here, advising Ria on her footwork.

I couldn't help but scowl. The worst part about him, about how he treated me with all the temper he'd show a dent in the sole of his boot, was that he actually _was_ knowledgeable and his arrogance actually _did_ have a foundation to stand on.

Would it be so hard to accept my presence, like he apparently had Ria's? She was an Imperial— usually disliked by Nords almost as much as the Mer. He did not even know me. Had specifically ignored any opportunity _to_ get to know me since I'd arrived.

Aela laughed aloud at my words, or perhaps seeing my frown.

"Aye," she agreed, "if he'd grown up anywhere else but Jorrvaskr, I wager he'd have joined the Mage's College, or the ministry of Julianos— wasted his brains behind a book and a desk instead of making them useful behind a shield and sword."

Her nails pricked the bare skin of my shoulder when she squeezed it, once, before letting go.

"He's smart," she concluded, and I listened to her feet as she turned away, "but he has more heart than anyone."

I stood a moment longer at the top of those stairs, wondering whether Aela had been demeaning Vilkas or praising him. But my mind was like a bottle of torchbugs, and finally, I shrugged and descended. I fancied I could hear my bed calling me.

* * *

"Shut your mouth," I spat like a cornered cat, my face flushing more the longer Torvar laughed. "It was only the _difference_ that got me."

"Right, of course," he almost sang, merry as a laundrymaid with new gossip. "Just the thing a lightweight would say!"

I drew myself up as tall as I could and pushed him into a chair. He landed in it easily, rocked back and just laughed the harder. Finally, I smiled. Woflishly.

"Fine. Think what you want," I quipped, finding the door to the courtyard with my staff and pushing it open. "We'll speak again once you've _tried_ to hold a swallow of Bosmeri 'wine'."

Torvar blustered as a horse, unimpressed. "Why?" He teased. "What's it made of— boiled leaves?"

I did not turn, pressing down the flash of offense at the slight.

"No," I said, calm as the twilight breeze coming in to tease my hair. "Raw beast. Wrung into a vat and left in the sun."

I closed the door on the absolute silence behind me. When it clicked shut, I did my damnedest not to laugh outright, but I beamed all the same.

I smelled Skjor and Farkas, lounging at the table benches during a training break, and heard them turn.

"There you are." Skjor acknowledged me, all authority. I planted myself in the chair by the door, facing him, as a page before her knight-trainer.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked, deciding it would probably be best not to mention I'd prioritized falling onto my bed and sleeping the afternoon away in a mead-induced haze above seeking him out.

"I did." His tone dropped, and the fine hairs of my arms pricked in immediate fear.

What had I done? I fretted silently, scrambling to think what misstep I had made, where; the best way to make amends— they couldn't kick me out now! I'd just finally settled. No one else slept in the bed I'd claimed, Torvar and Ria had become like kin to me— Aela had called me 'Sister'!

Oh, I would fight this. If they were going to change their minds about me, they should have done it days ago— weeks. Memory of a dragon swooping from the sky, buried all these days, came back to me with a roar. Memory of it crashing, dying; my body siphoning the soul from it until only brittle bone was left.

They could not kick me out to face that alone. I could forget it when I was drenched in sweat in the yard, focusing everything I had on dodging Athis' quick-as-thought blades; or when carefully sliding Torvar's warhammer from his side while he drunkenly dozed, and hiding it.

I had molded to this place. No high mountain slopes could see me here. No wizened men, who could rend the sky like the monster I'd slain, were waiting for me if I did not think of them. No talk of "Dragonborn" tugged on my ribs with rightness I did not want. I had chosen my own way, and it was here. As a "whelp." As Lir.

And, Y'ffre help me, not even Skjor could take that away from me.

Scarcely a breath had passed, and I came back to myself to find my spine ramrod straight, my left hand knuckles stretched tight as I clenched my staff. Words fell together on my tongue, ready to lash out and plead my case. Breathing fast through flared nostrils, I remembered Farkas there. He would not cut me loose, surely—

"Your time, it seems, has come." Skjor finished.

"What—" I blurted, reeling as though from whiplash. Settling back into my seat again, I purged my incorrect anxieties, my insecurities; letting the near-night air seep into me to calm me.

"— do you mean?" I finally managed, steadier.

I heard Skjor move in his seat; leaning, gesturing.

"Last week," he began, "a scholar came to us. Claimed he knew where to find another fragment of Wuuthrad." A breath like a scoff, from his nose. "He seemed a fool to me. But if he's right— the honor of the Companions demands we seek it out."

He paused, seeming to wait, and I resisted the urge to fidget. Was he studying me? What for? What—

"What does this have to do with me?" I hesitated to ask, the words coming slowly as I hoped it was not a fool's question.

"This is a simple errand." Skjor seemed to snap, and again I feared I'd erred. But his voice softened: "And the time is right for it to be your Trial."

I felt as though a pitcher was being slowly upended over my head. Figurative rivulets of chill trickled down my body, raising goosebumps and making my heart stutter.

 _My Trial?_ I listened to a moose bellow in the distance; eased my tongue out to taste the nighttime on my dry lips. It felt odd that the world was unchanged, carrying on, despite this revelation. I had expected to struggle as a whelp for far longer than this. _I'm not ready for this!_

"Carry yourself with honor, and you will become a _true_ Companion." Skjor said meaningfully.

A heavy kind of wonder settled over me, pressing away the surprise and nerves. A weight that made a strength rise up inside me to meet it.

 _A true Companion, I repeated._ My heart beat like a winter-hungry beast's; leaving its cave and finding spring had bloomed early. _I am ready for that._

I nodded deeply, half a bow, to show my honored acceptance of this assignment.

Skjor shifted, growled, and I tasted irritation in the air. I raised my face, surprised.

"There's a fine line between respect and boot-licking," he warned harshly, then once more relaxed. "But I like your spirit."

I thought to thank him, but hesitated, a smile flickering uncertainly on my mouth.

"Farkas will be your Shield-Sibling on this venture, whelp." The grizzled man continued, and I jerked my attention to Farkas in surprise. He was yet eating and drinking not a stone's throw away, utterly unconcerned. "He'll answer any questions you have.

"Try not to disappoint. Or to get him killed."

The words were a slap and my insides drooped, cooled. Did Skjor not think me capable? Did he expect me to fail? From whom did this assignment come, if not from him? Was this a trick? A rigged test they knew, hoped, planned that I would not come back from?

Anger and stubbornness overwhelmed my worry in an instant. It seemed I had as many nay-sayers in Jorrvaskr as supporters.

It was _my_ vote which would break the tie.

Farkas was still sitting, finishing breakfast, when I met him the next morning; pack on my shoulders, dagger at my hip, bow and quiver against my spine. He grunted in greeting when I sat myself opposite him. Eyes narrowed, I focused on the sound and smell of him.

"I hope you've readied yourself," he said gruffly. I realized he wore his full armor; a pack of supplies rustling faintly beneath the shield on his back. The food and drink that met his mouth was light, the kind of fare you ate when preparing for a journey.

My mouth pulled sideways, not quite a frown or a wince, as I noted he was in a warrior's mindset. Tucked away somewhere was the kinship I'd found with him over the passed days. For now he was my proctor, and I was sitting down for a test.

"You're to be my Shield-Brother?" I asked finally, not knowing what else to say. I had thought him my Shield-Brother already. In heart, at least. I was a fool to get attached before I'd been Tried. Like skinning a beast before he was killed.

"So I've been told." It was as though we had never sparred. Never jested. "We'll see if you impress."

I nodded, eyebrows low. _'We,' him and me…? 'We,' him and the Circle…?_

 _No matter,_ I thought fiercely, standing up suddenly and twisting until my gear was settled against me. _I'll impress._

Farkas moved, watching me even now. _Are we starting already?_

"I'll meet you at Dustman's Cairn." I said, remembering the name Skjor had told me when he had to take some moments to point it out on my map. If the test had already begun, I wanted to get off to a good start. A smile tried to show but I pushed it down.

What better way than racing my proctor, and winning?

"Don't delay, Shield-Sister." Farkas warned, and that's when I grinned. My feet moved and I was off. I didn't know if I left him surprised behind me or not, but the clack of my walking stick on stone, the thump of it on earth, the clatter of it when I slanted it ahead of me to warn of obstacles— it was loud as I cantered through the city.

When I pushed the city gates open, hinges creaking above me, I heard the lift and fall of heavy armor on a body— a body moving fast. I grinned again and darted through the smallest of openings, shoving the gates closed again behind me and ran.

The land was more open here and I knew the wilds far better than towns. Wind pressed against my face, deafening me on one side, overinforming me on the other. I had to twist my head on my neck to listen for the gates. They were thrown open wide, I heard it; Farkas far stronger than I.

I felt triumphant as I ran, remembering the bumps of the paper map beneath my fingers. I raised my hands and braced myself against a sign post barely in time to keep from running headlong into it— pushed off as I remembered to follow the road west.

 _It's a game, Farkas,_ I thought mischievously, giddily, and turned as I ran; spun on the balls of my feet to try to smell him, hear him behind me. I would not have my Shield-Brother treating me dourly. I had so many others back in Jorrvaskr for that. But not Farkas.

I became winded and had to slow to a jog at the western watchtower. I could smell ruin still, and my face fell. Balgruuf had not ordered it rebuilt? The smell of old burn flashed up my nose as a gust engulfed me. I felt blinded all over again— my nose consumed, my ears filled. I opened my mouth wide to suck in air, taste it; bared my palms to feel—

That was when Farkas caught me.

His body slammed into me, his arms coming around when mine came up and trapped them against my chest. He spun me in a circle and I was already disoriented. I was dizzy when he set me down, and his laughter tore away from me in another gust.

"Too slow," his words, through a grin, drifted back to me and I realized he had run on. My mouth gaped in a smile, and my eyes were wide in my face. I found the road with my fingers and soles, and let out a laugh as I sprinted after him.

 _I_ knew _he couldn't stay cold for long._

I felt the higher-air change before the wind did, and my lips pulled tight across my teeth in a feral smile. The gentler wind brushed right into me, right past me, and I could smell him; hear his steps a few moments behind. I felt a wolf, then, as I tracked him.

My staff became heavy in my hand as an hour passed. Two. The scent and sounds of Farkas ahead of me thinned and I strained to keep up. How was he still running? Full-pelt, and in heavy armor, after two hours? My legs burned. My left arm, the one holding my walking staff, ached. The air came thicker through me until it began to obstruct my hearing. I had to slow.

My feet slapped the stone and dirt of the road as my forward movement settled to a walking pace with me. I plucked my waterskin from low on my pack, by my bedroll. I brought it to my lips and drank deeply— nose flared as I breathed, carefully smelling for any surprises.

I smelled stone, wood, fire— forge tang. My eyebrows came down as I pulled my drink away, clipped it back to its place. I closed my mouth and breathed again, turning my face into the wind. It smelled like a city, but rough and small. Scarce.

A fort, I realized belatedly, and dropped to a squat. I skittered off of the road and behind a bump in the land. I had no way to know whether the place was friendly or not, but my time in Cyrodiil had been an extended lesson in caution. Too often I had found myself turned around in a storm and sought shelter the first place I came to, and had to slit throats and snap necks and crawl to a blood-reeking pantry and nurse my own wounds until the weather lifted.

A small thunder approached me now, and I turned to greet Farkas with a smile when the big man squatted next to me. So much for my hiding.

"Who is it?" I asked him, gesturing toward the fort; swallowing the pride that splintered in the asking.

All lightheartedness had left him as it had left me. He trundled forward further.

"Bandits." He grunted finally. "I can see cages. Bodies on pikes."

I smelled deeply, chest filling as I searched— and found. _Sun rot._

My blood heated and my fingers fisted in the grass beneath me. I wondered if those bodies had been yet alive when struck through, left to burn and bleed and bloat.

"Am I being Tried now?" I ventured, jaw tense; whole body tense, ready to charge.

Farkas hesitated. I thought I could almost hear him thinking.

"We need to go to the Cairn," he said slowly, obviously conflicted and confused.

Teeth grinding, I was caught in indecision. My Proving waited. The fragment waited. These bandits were doing nothing, now, to warrant attack.

Again, the whiff of sun-ruined flesh found me. I wondered if the wood grain of my walking stick would be forever imprinted in my palm, so tightly did my hand twist around it.

 _They're not going anywhere, Lir,_ I told myself reasonably. _Think about it. They've taken a fort. They've settled in._

I stood, mouth clamped shut and lips thin. I let out a breath through my nose, long and slow and silent until my chest was empty and my heart was once more steady.

"Lead the way," I murmured to Farkas, and the wind deafened me to any reaction of his before he started off. I stayed close so as not to lose him. Both of us were tense, wordless, as every sense was alert for any movement in the fort; the smallest hint that they were paying us any mind as we took to the road again and passed them by. Only when they were hundreds of yards behind us did Farkas' gait finally loosen, and my shoulders unclench. But still, our playfulness had been snuffed, and we jogged on in silence.

Night had become distinct by the time I heard the wind humming oddly ahead of us. The hair of my arms rose in the wake of an abruptly chilly breeze and I cursed under my breath. Once again, I had set out from Whiterun without remembering, first, to fashion myself a cloak. Skyrim was a land cold, by nature. But now with Hearthfire half behind us, winter's fingers had more than settled over the country; ready to pull himself through properly given just a little more time.

But that hum - that thrum like a whistle over a bottle, but far too deep - that was not a winter sound. I canted my chin up, sniffing as we jogged on, and I only caught stone, dirt, sagebrush, and pine in the twisting of the cold wind; the same as the rest of the tundra-plains.

My feet struck looser dirt and gravel, not packed like the stones of the road, and only practice-turned-instinct corrected me, kept me from stumbling. I jerked my head around, mouth open, to taste, to smell, to readjust; spread my free hand out and felt the reaching bristles of brush, pulled back a handful of tundra cotton. Farkas had turned from the road, it seemed - and at no landmark I, in my darkness, could sense. The race had been a jest, at first, but immediately I was glad to be following the big man so closely. Had I trailed behind to meet him, even with Skjor's mark on my map, I would not so quickly, so easily have found the place.

The terrain became steeper, abruptly; one of Whiterun's many intermittent hills. We trekked up and— _Oh._ The deep, bass thrum underscoring the air had gotten louder as we'd gone, and I had not noticed until I stood at the edge of its origin.

"Dustman's Cairn." Farkas announced, plain; with some thin traces of curiosity, eagerness, dubiousness in his tone. His voice bounced back to us wide from below, and I closed my eyes, turning my face this way and that to map it.

A pit. A deliberate gaping of layered, structured stone built down into the top of the hill — like a wound, but instead of patched, reinforced — and further.

Farkas lit a torch beside me, and the flare of smoke bent around us and, following the wind, I realized: The pit was ringed on the exterior by near monoliths of stone; rounded by weather. I stepped just to the side to pass my palm along one, but any artistry or etching was long since lost to time.

 _Five,_ I counted, noting the gaps in the air. _Like fingers._ I shivered at the thought, the proposed likeness that, instead of a wound, it was an open, cupping palm reaching for light from beneath the earth; its long fingers breaking Nirn as it hungrily stretched.

"We should keep moving," Farkas cut in at my side, and I shook myself; turned to him, finally. The wind split around him and, silhouetted, I realized he had stopped at the crest, too, and stilled; facing me. Waiting. The torch aloft in his hand burned steadily, the smoke it spat only brushing when my tongue licked out to taste my lips, not biting as it would if he were waving it or turning in investigation or impatience.

My heart stuttered twice, and my stomach twisted. Farkas had led us to this point… And now, it was my turn.

I swallowed the urge to clear my throat, and stepped up to the edge of the Cairn. Pebbles skittered across the worn-soft stone, and bounced down once, twice, thrice— Stairs, angling left.

 _As soon as you cross the threshold,_ I thought, chewing the inside of my lip and distracting myself with scents of hanging moss, a lit brazier of coal and ash below, and the old, old tang of weather-stained metal— the door within— _your Trial begins._

I took a slow, deep breath through my nose; breathed it out just as slowly through a tight _o_ in my lips. And, just like that, a smile pulled slanted across my face, and my eyebrows relaxed over canny eyes.

"Let's go." I said.

And we stepped down into the Cairn.


End file.
